


Day Five

by PineconeTrinklebriar



Series: Nightlights [9]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Horrortale Sans (Undertale), Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Innuendo, M/M, Mentioned Alphys (Undertale), Mild Gore, Mistaken Identity, Murder Mystery, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Secrets, Swapfell Sans (Undertale), Swearing, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale), soul injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineconeTrinklebriar/pseuds/PineconeTrinklebriar
Summary: The fifth day of Sans's forced work vacation turns out to be more exciting (read: dangerous) than anticipated. When bodies of murdered humans start to turn up near New New Home, the Paranormal Security department is called in to find the guilty party before humans can blame monsters. By the end of the day, lies are exposed, secrets are revealed, and an old friend is summoned.
Relationships: Papyrus/Sans (Undertale), Sans (Undertale)/Reader, Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: Nightlights [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994629
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14





	1. The Sleuths

**Author's Note:**

> Warning:  
> This one references murders that occurred off-screen with descriptions of the crime scenes and how they died. I don't think it's particularly graphic, but you might feel differently.  
> Also, there's a lot of discussion about cheating on significant others in this work and a lot of misunderstandings surrounding that topic.  
> Oh, and Sans and Ellie talk about sex a lot more than usual. It's not graphic or anything.

Sans being on vacation might kill you. Both literally and metaphorically.

You reached that conclusion at  _ what the fuck time is it o’clock _ when he wrenched open the living room curtains and let the evil sun rip out your retinas, waking you from the sleep that you’d only  _ just managed _ to fall into after yet another nightmare.

“I might actually hate you,” you groaned at him.

He bustled over and planted a kiss on the top of your forehead, then dodged to the side when you tried to swat him away. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d just stayed over last night,” he pointed out. “Or if me entering your allegedly ‘safe home’ had woken you like it should have. Or if you answered any of the phone calls or texts I made prior to coming over here.”

Oh. Well, that explained that. He was worried, probably worked himself up into a tizzy thinking you were dead (which wasn’t as unreasonable as you led him to believe, what with the condition of your soul), and came over here to check on you. He was also pissed as hell that his entering the house didn’t wake you up. As if murderers have keys. “Sorry,” you tried. “I think my phone’s upstairs? Probably?”

“What if you needed something?” he snapped.

“I can walk, Sans. I would have just walked myself right on up the stairs and gotten it.”

“Unless someone restrained you!”

“Sorry, in this scenario does someone break into the house and restrain me but also let me have a phone call? What an oddly polite rapist slash murderer.”

He growled at you and you sighed. “Fine, fine. You have a small point. But I do too, and it’s that not going to work for the last five days is driving you up a wall and you’re taking it out on me.”

He huffed and pushed your feet out of the way so he could sit down on the couch. The cats immediately took advantage of his available lap to curl up in a pile of fuzzy purrs. Traitors. He stroked them gently even as he glared at you, made even funnier by those dumb sunglasses that the doctor made him promise to wear if he left the house. Speaking of which, “You didn’t drive over here, did you? You’re not supposed to be driving right now! Or teleporting!”

“I thought you were dead!”

“Sans! You can’t--”

“I got Jupiter to drop me off on his way to work,” he said over your protests. “But if he hadn’t been around, I absolutely would have teleported over here!”

Fuck, you were too tired for this, and your soul hurt.

You rubbed your eyes and sighed. “I really am sorry I worried you. I’m simultaneously pissed that you woke me up.”

His anger relented a little bit. “I suppose that was unnecessary of me.” He looked you over and frowned. “Is your insomnia acting up again?”

~~_ Nope. Your soul aching kept you up all night. _ ~~

“Yeah,” you said, looking away from him.

He tsked a little and petted your leg. You looked up at him, saw the dumb look on his face, and groaned. “No!”

“All I’m saying is it would help you sleep,” he said, complete with an exaggerated brow waggle.

“Dude, we’ve had more sex in the last five days than the entire span of our three-year relationship combined. I’m sore in places I didn’t even know  _ could _ be sore.”

He grinned at you like he was somehow proud of that fact and you couldn’t help but laugh at the dumb face he was making. “You look so dumb in those sunglasses,” you snorted at him.

“You love it.”

“Well, I love you, and I love you having depth perception so I guess I also love the sunglasses.” 

He chuckled and then lightly sat both cats down on the floor. You narrowed your eyes at him. “What are you--” Before you could finish the sentence, he had you tucked up in his arms and was marching towards the stairs. “Hey!” you squeaked.

“You are going to bed to get some rest,” he told you firmly.

“Babe--”

“And I am going to stay here and make sure you actually sleep.”

“Sans--”

“Because I love you, too,” he declared as he dumped you onto your bed. Your exhausted libido made a valiant effort at waking at both the declaration of love and being dumped into your bed, but it was squelched when you gave a jaw-cracking yawn. Sans pulled the blankets back and rearranged everything so you were comfy and cozy before crawling into bed beside you.

“Are you just going to lay there and watch me sleep?” you asked.

He grinned unabashedly. “Yes.”

You rolled your eyes. “Creeper.” But you still snuggled up against him and closed your eyes, willing yourself to fall asleep.

***

_ It’s dark in the kitchen. You feel a little dread welling up in your gut like you know that this isn’t going to go well. You look over and shudder at the sight of a red eye light in the darkness.  _

_ You’re in the air, someone has you by the throat. It’s Sans, it’s Hobbes, it’s Hueline. _

_ It’s Oliver. _

_ Your soul hurts, feels like it’s tearing and burning and you’re going to die. You try to scream for Sans, for Mutt, for anyone but you can’t. It hurts too much. It hurts. _

“Eleanor!”

You shoved yourself backward, trying to break the hold that Oliver had on your throat and felt yourself fall. You didn’t hit the floor, though, and for a few seconds you continued thrashing and struggling, thinking that he still had a hold of you. It took longer than you’d care to admit to realize that no one was even touching you; you fell from the bed and Sans caught you with his blue magic so you didn’t hit the floor. He was leaning over the bed, one socket glowing, and a look of stricken worry on his face.

And a bruise.

“Oh my god! Sans! I’m so sorry!” you blubbered, reaching for him. He pulled you back into the bed and tucked you into his arms. “Let me see your face. I hit you, didn’t I? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean--”

“Hush,” he interrupted gently. He pet you, shushing you quietly, and you felt him pushing healing magic to calm you.

“Stop healing me! You’re the one who’s hurt!” you snapped. That wasn’t strictly true; your soul was screaming in pain, but you couldn’t very well bust out the magic EpiPen Alphys gave you with Sans sitting here. Besides, the pain usually ebbed away after the nightmare; you would probably be fine.

“It’s a bruise,” Sans said flatly.

“Yeah! When I got a bruise from one of your nightmares you flew off the handle and tried to break up with me!”

“If I let you heal it will you calm down?”

You nodded and he slowly let go of you so that you could shift around and press healing magic into the bruise on his cheekbone. “It’s so close to your socket,” you said miserably. “I could have really hurt you. You’re still recovering and…”

“And I should have dodged quicker,” he said simply. Before you could protest, he kissed you lightly. “I knew you were having a nightmare and I tried to wake you. I know better than to touch someone like that. I’m fine, love.” He shifted so that he could look you in the eyes. “I’m more concerned about you. What--”

“I don’t remember,” you lied.

He blinked at you. “Love…”

“Please?” you whispered.

He sighed. “Fine. But if this continues--”

“I’ve been talking to Dr. Springer about it,” you blurted. You didn’t even know why you did; lying to Sans wasn’t something you did. Omitting details was fine (sort of), but outright lying? You really tried not to do that.

He looked at you for a moment then nodded. “That’s good then. Just… I love you. I want to help if I can.”

_ You can’t. _ “I love you too.”

You could tell that he wanted to push a little more, try to coax you into saying something, but his phone went off with the ringtone that he set for Edge. It was a simple little bell chime; apparently, he changed it back since the last time you got a hold of his phone and changed it to ‘secret lovers’. What a shame. “Sans here,” he said. He paused then, “Yes, of course”. He rattled off some rapid fire questions for Edge in an unhappy tone. By the time he hung up, he looked like a sullen child.

That could only mean, “Got a mission?” you asked, already scrambling out of bed.

“Yes.”

“Who’s coming to pick me up?”

Your question was answered by a yell from your living room. “‘M here an’ I’m s’posed to be! Don’ shank me! An’ for the love of donuts please be wearing pants!”

Mutt.

You hurriedly changed into mission-appropriate clothes and darted out of the room with Sans on your heels. Mutt was lounging on your couch with two cats and a bird all snuggled up around him. “You really are an animal whisperer,” you told him as you came down the stairs.

“That’s because they recognize one of their own. I’m sure that pigs would have an absolute field day if they met him,” Sans snarked behind you.

Mutt narrowed his sockets at his brother. “Is that a fucking pun?” Sans just shot him a shit-eating grin and Mutt flipped him off. “Bossman says that he’ll drive you over to his house to monitor the situation,” Mutt said to Sans.

“Fine, fine.” Sans turned to you and worry danced across his face. “You will be careful, won’t you?”

“Duh,” you said, leaning up to give him a quick kiss. Then, Mutt pulled you flush against him and ripped open a door to the void.

You appeared in Edge and Stretch’s living room. Red, Edge, and Comic were all there waiting for you. “Sup?” you asked. “Where’s Stretch?”

“Brotherly bonding with Blue,” Edge said with a shrug. “Sans is going to be on the coms for us on this mission.”

“We got some murders,” Red said simply.

“Murders? Of monsters?” you asked. You felt sick. Everyone had been lucky so far; no humans or mages managed to get into New New Home and take out monsters, no one got ganked on the street, but you sort of knew it was only a matter of time. Humans loved to kill each other; there was no reason that monsters would be exempt.

“Nah, buncha humans,” Red answered. 

Comic pulled up a map on Stretch’s computer. It indicated that the murders were spread out across Ebbott, but seemed to originate at New New Home. “Oh. So they think a monster is responsible?” you asked.

“Yup,” Comic said, popping the ‘p’. 

“We’re gonna hit bricks to find out what happened while Sansy tries to get us some more info from the police reports,” Red said.

“Don’t call me that, asshole,” Sans muttered. “Unless you want me to start callin’ ya sugarplum at security briefings?”

Something dangerous flashed through Red’s eye lights. You elected to ignore him and popped your ear piece into place. “Sounds good. We splittin’ up or stickin’ together?”

“Stickin’ together for now,” Red said, turning from Comic to you, “at least until we know what we’re dealin’ with. I don’ like goin’ inta a situation blind an’ right now I’m cravin’ some cheese ‘cause I feel like one o’ the three blind mice.”

You snorted. “That was cheesy, even for you.”

“Cheese-us Christ, doll, ya really get me.”

“Darlin’, please,” Mutt groaned. “‘E’s barely housetrained. Don’ encourage him.”

Red cheerily flipped Mutt off before stepping forward to catch your arm and pull you into the void. “Hold up!” Comic said and dashed forward. Red paused and looked at him with a raised brow that immediately turned into a look of stunned confusion when Comic planted a kiss on his teeth. “Be careful out there, handsome,” he said. 

Red looked like he was about to have a total breakdown. Comic’s grin turned sly and you stifled a puking noise when he reached around and tweaked Red’s coccyx. That seemed to reboot his mental functions enough for him to glare at his collared. Comic simply looked up at him, innocently bland. 

“You’re a menace, squeakheart,” Red said fondly.

Comic shrugged and grinned. “Get goin’. We got plans tonight an’ you know how Paps gets when we cancel.”

“What are--” you began before being yanked into the void. “--your plans,” you finished lamely when you appeared in front of a ranch style house with caution tape over the door. “Rude,” you griped at Red.

“The Creampuff wants to watch Mettaton and eat ice cream,” Red said.

“Ice cream? Paps?” Mutt asked incredulously. “I thought he only ate healthy shit.”

“Guess it’s a special occasion,” Comic said. You could tell he was trying to sound casual, but his voice shook a little. He was worried. You filed that away in the back of your mind as Red led you and Mutt towards the house.

“This’s the house o’ the latest victim,” Red said. “‘is name was Chad McDonald an’ he was stabbed by somethin’. A lot.”

“Gross,” you said softly.

“An’ he was covered in what looked like snakebites,” Comic said in your ear.

“Snakebites? How’s that happen in a house in Ebbott? The guy have snakes?” Mutt asked.

“Nah, seems like a normal dude. House with a picket fence, 2.5 kids, a dog. Wife’s on the PTO. It’s all very normal, jus’ like all the other victims.”

You winced. “A family man?”

“Yeah,” Comic said sadly.

“They all were?”

“Yeah. Didn’ all have kids but were all married.”

You looked at the house. “And they were all covered in bites?”

“You know somethin’?” Red asked, eyes narrowed.

You shrugged. “I got a hunch. Hey, computer nerd, can you dig into the victims’ lives? Their finances, their work histories, track their movements? That kind of thing?”

“Do electrons orbit protons?” Comic scoffed. “‘Course I can. But why?”

You looked up at the house. “I just want to see if I’m right. We’ll keep working here; let us know what you dig up. Any odd behavior or anything like that.”

“Sure, boss,” Comic said breezily, “hey, you gonna tell me what I’m lookin’ for?”

“You’re a science boy. You should know better than to bias the results.”

He sighed and you all got back to work, a bad feeling settling into your chest.

***

The alarm that you set to remind you of your appointment with Alphys went off in the third crime scene. You frowned at the phone. You couldn't very well just leave a job. You knew she’d be pissed, but you had to reschedule. You shot her a quick text and went back to work.

The house was a mess, like the other two houses/crime scenes you visited today. The furniture was overturned, the walls looked like someone had punched through them or maybe stabbed them, and there was enough crimson blood on the floor to make you wonder if maybe it was just paint after all. 

(It wasn’t.)

The murder wasn’t fresh enough for alliumagic to linger. The poor bastard’s wife was out of town with the kids for a week so it was several days before he was found. Unfortunately for everyone, it was one of the sex workers he hired in advance that found him on the floor. Comic read you the interview from the police file and it sounded absolutely brutal. You were pretty sure that lady was going to receive a sizeable check for her contribution to the case.

You were poking around the dining room when your phone buzzed. You fished it out of your pocket absently, then froze at the content of the message.

**You (2:48 p.m.):** Hey, not gonna make today’s appt. Sorry :(

**Alphys (3:21 p.m.):** You can’t miss these appointments!

**You (3:22 p.m.):** I’m on a case. We’ll reschedule. I can’t leave now.

**Alphys (3:22 p.m.):** I think I solved the problem, though.

You sucked in a deep breath. She thought she solved it? You barely remembered making the decision to gallop down the stairs and out into the yard, switching off your ear piece and pulling your phone to your ear. It rang twice, thrice, then a nervous voice said, “H-h-hello?”

“Al? What do you mean you think you solved it?” Something like hope welled in your chest. This was about to be over.

“W-w-w-well I f-f-f-found a c-case stud-d-dy of a m-monster s-s-s-sealing a soul w-w-w-wound,” she said.

You should have felt bad for making her talk on the phone (you knew what it did to her anxiety) but you couldn’t stop. You needed answers and you needed them  _ now _ . “Yeah? And?”

“G-G-G-Gerson s-s-s-sustained a t-t-terrible wound in the w-war, but his w-w-wife was able to seal it,” she said.

“Really?”

“Y-yes. It would have been f-fatal otherwise. A t-t-t-t-trusted p-p-partner could…”

“Wait, you want Sans to come in and do this for me?”

“W-well, we’d want to do it at the hospital in case something went wrong, but yes. You and him already exchange a lot of magic--”

“Al! Gross!”

“--and your system would certainly accept the transplant.”

You frowned. “It sounds dangerous. Is it dangerous?”

“If your soul rejects the magic, it c-could r-r-r-rupture,” she admitted.

“What about Sans? Is it dangerous for him?”

“There are some potential side effects, but the captain should be healthy enough--”

“No.”

She startled. “W-what do you m-mean?”

“I mean no,” you said. “If there’s any danger to Sans, he’s not doing this. You’ll just have to find another way.”  _ I can’t tell him, but even if I could, I won’t let him put himself in danger for me. I’m not worth it,  _ you didn’t say out loud. A skeleton would have heard it anyway, but Alphys wasn’t that perceptive (thank the gods).

“The d-d-danger would be m-minimal,” she said. 

“Yeah? Are there a lot of experiments about this? Tons of research you can pool?”

A pause. “G-Gerson’s case is the only r-recorded successful c-case. Grillby’s wife…” she trailed off.

“Sorry, Alphys. I’m not endangering Sans, not for me.”

“T-this c-c-c-ould kill you! You are possibly killing yourself w-w-with this ch-choice!”

You were about to continued the argument with a very firm and cordial “fuck off” when you sensed a presence behind you. You whipped around and saw Mutt standing there, sockets narrowed. You did your best to wipe your face of any microexpressions that meant ‘hey, I’ve been keeping a secret from everyone, don’t ask me about it, nothing to see here.’ You doubted you were successful. “I gotta go,” you said quickly. “I’ll think about it.” Then you hung up the phone and turned a too-bright smile on Mutt. “Hey buddy. Standing there long?”

He shrugged, then made a show of turning off his earpiece. He stepped closer to you until he was very firmly in your personal bubble. “What the fuck’s goin’ on wit’ ya?” he asked, voice low.

“Um.”

He looked you over. “Nightmares?” he asked softly.

“Um,” you repeated. Wow, that tree really was nice, wasn’t it?

“They’ve been gettin’ worse since that thing in with Hobbes.”

“I’ve always had nightmares.” You knew he’d see it for the deflection that it was.

“Mhm,” he said. “Bad enough to wake up screamin’ every night?”

“It’s fine, Mutt.”

He quirked a brow at you. “That why you sent my bro home with a bruise?” Your face must have betrayed how awful you felt about that because he softened again. “Listen, you’re worryin’ us. Jus’... I get it if ya don’ wanna tell Sans what happened, but ya know you can tell me, right? I won’ fly off the handle or nothin’.”

Right. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s just some dreams.”

Mutt sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. He looked angry. Angry and resigned. “Fine. Whatever. Just came out to getcha ‘cause Comic found somethin’.” With that, he disappeared into the void and you were alone.

Your soul ached.

It was for their own good.

Just a little longer and this would all be over. You hoped.


	2. The Suspect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summoning an old friend doesn't go quite as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: description of injury, accusations of cheating and incest

You rejoined Mutt and Red in the house. Mutt casually leaned against a wall and didn’t look at you. Red looked between the two of you with narrowed sockets. Fantastic, now everyone was figuring out that something was wrong.

Yeah, because you’ve been doing a killer job of hiding that.

“Earpiece on?” Mutt asked. “‘Cause ‘parently Comic has some shit to tell us.”

So he wasn’t going to say anything about your tiff then, not right now anyway. 

Your soul thumped with affection for him. Even when he was suspicious and pissed, he still had your back. You rubbed your sternum absently, then followed his instructions and turned on your earpiece.

“Okay, I’m on,” you said.

“Hey sleepin’ beauty,” Red said. “Thanks for joinin’ us. Where ya been?”

“Just getting some air. Or I guess I was waiting on my true love’s kiss,” you said with a shrug. 

“I offered--” Sans began.

“And what did you need to tell us, Comic?” you said over him, just in case he was going to wax poetic about his attempts at romance that morning. Red snickered in the background, clearly hearing what Sans was going to say anyway.

“Well ya were right ‘bout these guys,” Comic said. “They had some weird shit on their credit cards.”

“Weird shit?” you prompted.

“Stays at nice hotels when their wives thought they were out of town, expensive restaurants, jewelry…”

“Oh shit,” Red said. “Cheatin’ scumbags? All of ‘em?”

“Cheatin’ scumbags, all of ‘em.” 

“Do you think this is some sort of curse? Perhaps a vengeful spirit?” Sans suggested.

“I hope it’s that simple,” you said. 

“What do you mean?” Sans asked stiffly.

You sighed. “I mean, it’s been a few hundred years since I heard about cheating bastards ending up with snakebites and stab wounds. I thought she was out of the business.”

“You gonna tell us who you’re talkin’ about?” Mutt drawled.

You rubbed your sternum again. “Yeah. Yeah, I just need to get some stuff. I’ll meet you at Edge’s in like an hour.”

***

One unanswered text and almost an hour later, you pulled your Jeep into Edge’s driveway. You grabbed the duffle bag you packed and pushed your way inside the house without bothering to ring the bell. Everyone turned to look at you and you gave them a wary smile. You glanced at Mutt and he met your eyes, then winked at you. You felt yourself relax a little. That was his way of saying that he wasn’t actively pissed at you anymore, that things were okay.

Thank the gods.

“Well?” Edge asked impatiently.

“I, um. Well. I have this old friend? I’m not sure friend is really the best word for her, but she’s someone I used to know. Long time ago.”

“A murdery someone?” Comic asked.

“Kind of. But it’s not her fault! I’m only bringing it up because this matches her M.O., but I can’t imagine that she’s back on the job, not unless something’s gone really, really wrong.”

“Who is it?” Sans asked.

You chose to just bowl over that question. “I have the stuff to summon her, but I think it’s best if I do it alone,” you said. Everyone in the room stiffened. “She’s pretty anti-males and you’re all guys,” you explained. “Safest if I do it myself.”

“She’s a murderer and you want to summon her by yourself?” Sans asked. He said it like you were a dumb child.

“She doesn’t ever hurt women,” you said defensively.

Before they could ask you anything else, Edge’s phone rang. It was the shrill, screaming ringtone of the Embassy emergency line. Everyone stiffened and looked at him expectantly.

“Edge,” he said like a detective from a shitty cop show. He listened for a moment, then a pained look crossed his face. “Where?” Another moment of listening, then, “Has the family been informed?” Pause. “Good. Yes, thank you for letting me know. I will get the team over there right away.” He hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment longer before saying in a small voice, “A monster has been killed.”

Everyone in the room sucked in a breath.

“Who?” Comic asked.

“One of the slimes, an accountant. Blargodles.”

Comic looked pained. He probably knew the guy; after all, he knew everyone.

“You guys go check that out,” you said. “I’ll see if I can reach my old buddy.” Everyone looked at you like you’d just suggested they feed you to sharks piece by piece. “Seriously. She doesn’t hurt women. I’ll be fine,” you said.

“What do you need?” Edge asked. Everyone’s gaze shifted to him. Sans looked like he was going to cut Edge into sharkbait himself. Edge looked around at each of them and continued, “What? If she says it would be safe, I trust her.” He made eye contact with you and you forced yourself not to shrink from his gaze. “She would tell us if she were in danger.”

_ Oof. _ Edge wasn’t stupid, but you kind of hoped he forgot about the movie night where Neo threatened you and you tried to tell him nothing happened. There was a lot of excitement that night, what with the Yule Cat and stuff, but that was a pretty pointed jab. You wondered if he knew about your soul too, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. If he did, he would have spoken up already. 

Your secret was still safe. Probably.

“I would,” you said weakly.

He raised a brow, then nodded. “What do you need?”

“Just a quiet room away from anyone with a Y chromosome,” you said.

“You know that’s not how it works with monsters, right?” Sans asked.

You rolled your eyes. “Yup. Because that was the point of what I said.”

“You can use the library,” Edge said. “Red, Mutt, you two go to the new crime scene and investigate. The rest of us will remain here to see how things go with Ellie’s… visitor.”

That decided, you grabbed your duffel bag and started up to the library with Sans on your heels. “Stay out of the library,” you said.

“Of course,” Sans said.

“I mean it.”

“Right.”

“No, for real. She won’t handle a male being in the room well, even if you’re not a cheating bastard.”

“Definitely.” He opened the library door for you and gestured for you to walk in.

“Sans, I’m serious. She won’t hurt me, but she may hurt you.”

“Hello, serious. I am going to wait out here for you and will not come in unless you scream like you are being murdered.”

You rolled your eyes. “Do not enter the library under any circumstances.” You leaned up on your toes to give him a quick peck, then slipped past him. “That name’s long and dumb as hell, by the way,” you said, then shut the door in his face.

You took a deep breath. Time to get started. You carefully removed your earpiece and slipped it into the little carrying case in your pocket. Then, you opened the duffel bag. It was your summoning kit. You never used it and didn’t carry it with you often, but you had a few stashed in various locations around Ebbott in case of emergencies. You didn’t typically summon alliumedes, not unless it was an emergency; it tended to be more trouble than it was worth. This one was different, though. You knew this one personally. If she was running around murdering folks, you wanted to get to her before the others did. Maybe you could slap some reason into her.

Yeah, like that’d ever worked before.

You retrieved a golden bowl from the bag, as well as some candles and a purple cloth. The library was complete with a fireplace, so you used the mantle to create a little display of your stuff. From the depths of the bag you retrieved some incense and some flint. It was stupid that most spells didn’t work with modern versions of lighting flames like lighters and matches. Lighting incense with flint was a real bitch.

It took a few tries but you got the incense lit eventually. You used it to light the candles and put it all in the glass bowl. Finally, you retrieved a special item, one that you had to dig around in your house for. It’d been a couple hundred years since you saw it; it was lucky that Oliver hadn’t chucked it out like most of your other stuff when you broke up with him.

It was a small golden snake, a token that she gave you before she disappeared into the world. It was meant to be a way to call her back, should you ever need her. Anne probably had a matching one somewhere; you doubted she would throw it out, no matter how badly things ended between them. 

You dropped it into the bowl too, then sat down cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed with concentration. You gave it a couple of minutes before peeking an eye open, only to nearly jump out of your skin at the appearance of someone new in the library.

She looked nearly exactly the same as she had the last time you saw her. She was tall, tall enough to compete with the Papyri, and had long black hair that hung loose around her shoulders. Her outfit was different; the last time you saw her, she was dressed like a barmaid. Now, she looked like a dumb college kid walking home after a night at the club. She was a little sweaty and her makeup was a little smudged, but it only served to emphasize her beautiful gray eyes. Despite her height (or, knowing her, to enhance it) she wore stiletto heels. She tapped away at her phone like she was waiting for an Uber or something.

“You’ve summoned Megaira Fury, the Great and Powerful, the Bane of the Unfaithful,” she said in a bored voice. She didn’t even bother to look up. “Tell me how I can serve you.”

“Gara? You’re really back on the job then?” you asked incredulously.

Her head snapped up and she stared at you. “Nora?”

“I actually go by Ellie now,” you said lightly.

She strode forward and looked you over, frowning. “Your fucking soul! What the hell happened?”

“What? No, this is--”

She ignored you in favor of waving her phone over your chest. “Shit,” she hissed. “Oliver? Why didn’t you tell me?” You looked at her helplessly and she waved that phone over your chest again, then began tapping away at the screen again. “Healed over soul scars? Open wounds? You’re literally bleeding magic right the fuck now! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“It’s complicated.”

She snorted. “Yeah, everything always is with mortals, huh?” You heard the bitterness in her tone and shrank a little. “Whatever. You summoned me now so that’s something I guess.” She tapped the screen again and said, “It looks like we’ve got--” Her voice suddenly cut out even though her mouth was still moving. She frowned and touched her throat, then looked down at the phone and back at you. You recognized the problem from years ago, when she tried to tell you and Anne about a job that she was working on. Some sort of old magic prevented her from talking about her job with anyone who wasn’t the summoner or the victim. You remembered it being frustrating as hell for her.

“What the actual fuck? You’re not the one that summoned me for this job?” she asked, incredulous. “But the victim is--” She stomped her foot when her voice cut out again.

Who would she think you summoned her for? She was the demigod responsible for killing men who hurt women, usually by being unfaithful to them. So it would have to be…

“Someone summoned you to kill Sans?! Why? Who?!”

“Well, I assumed you,” she said. “Must of been one of the other injured parties.” Your stomach dropped and your soul hissed. “Sans? He isn’t…”

Gara looked at you with something like pity. “You poor thing. You don’t know? I’m so sorry. It’s, uh, a lot. It’s rough.” 

Every part of you screamed that Sans wasn’t cheating on you, that he would never--

_ (but you thought that before didn’t you?) _

No. He would never.

You tried to catch a glimpse of the phone, trying to make sense of what she told you, but the screen was fuzzed out. You couldn’t read anything but the general layout was familiar. “Is that a Google form?”

“Hey, it’s not ancient Greece anymore, babes. Just because I’m a vengeful demigod doesn’t mean that I can’t be organized.” She gripped your upper arms and gave you a serious look. “Is that really what you want to talk about right now?”

“N-no,” you managed. “Um. It’s just. Sans isn’t cheating on me.”

“Everyone says that,” Gara told you. It was almost gentle. “But if I got the form, that means there’s some definite shenanigans happening.”

You swallowed and looked at it. “Something’s wrong with your form, then.”

“The Form doesn’t lie, but men do.” She leaned out of your personal bubble a little. “But if that isn’t what you wanted, why  _ did _ you call me here?”

“I didn’t know you were back on the job,” you said.

She stiffened. “Shit changes.”

You raised a challenging brow. “The last time I saw you, you said that you were done, and I quote, being ‘a puppet of the gods.’”

She huffed. “Yeah, I know. Turns out that the gods don’t like to let go of their puppets that easily.” She looked down at her feet. “Apparently the whole damn universe was upset by me not doing my job, but a lot of gods haven’t done their jobs in a long time. Far as I can tell, it’s only Hades and Zeus still at it. I guess Zeus is trying to get the band back together again and he didn’t want to do it without his favorite girl on the bow.”

“Why?” you asked.

“No idea. But if you ignore them long enough, they eventually come for you. Easier to just do the job.” The look she gave you sent a chill down your spine. “Safer. For everyone.” A second later, she chased that haunted look away with a clap of her hands. “Anyway! That’s what I need to do. Boss’s orders.”

“Have you been killing humans?” you asked.

She shrugged. “Cheating humans.”

“And a monster.”

“Hm? Um. No, your boy toy will be the first one.”

“Gara, you can’t kill Sans. Please,” you said. You let pleading fall into your tone.

“Pft. Girl, I’ll be doing you a favor. He’s an incestuous cheating asshole. You really do know how to pick ‘em, huh?”

Incestuous? Cheating?  _ The fuck? _ That stung, and from the look on her face, she knew it and regretted it as much as she could. That’s the thing about Gara; she doesn’t have feelings. The legends said that she and her two sisters spontaneously sprang forth from blood spilled on the ground during a bitter betrayal, leaving the three sisters without the ability to feel and making them the perfect arbiters of justice. It also made them really shitty friends. And girlfriends. That’s why she and Anne broke up all those years ago, after all.

“Sorry,” she said. She actually sounded like she might actually be sorry. She was a good actress. “Look, I’ll get him to admit it to you before I off him, yeah? That’ll help you heal. Closure and shit.”

“You’re wrong about him,” you insisted. “Delete his Google Form or whatever.”

She shrugged. “Can’t. Once you’re on the list you only get off by me killing ya.”

“That’s literally the only option?”

“Well, yeah. I mean unless someone banishes me.” She noticed you shift your weight subtly. “Oh hell no. Don’t you fucking dare, Nora! Do  _ not _ banish me!” 

She tried to grab you, but you ducked under her grasp and dove for your duffel bag. That was the other necessary part of a summoning kit, the real reason you had them stashed around Ebbott: a banishing spell, premade and stored. Your fist closed around the small Tupperware container at the same time that Gara slammed into your side and sent you rolling across the floor. You hissed when you heard something crack and rolled over onto your back so you could kick her away from you. She scratched at your legs with what looked like fake press on nails but cut like claws. You felt her tear into your calves as you fumbled with the container.

Gara began to transform as her rage took over. You recognized the deep gray glow emanating from her chest and redoubled your efforts to fire off the banishing spell. You heard a faint hissing and the smell of her alliumagic--the scent of an unidentifiable perfume and sweat--washed over you. She growled and the door of the library burst open behind her.

Sans stood in the doorway with Edge behind him. They both had scythes called up and looked like they were going to fuck some shit up. They paused, though, when they saw that you were being assaulted by what appeared to be a club girl. “Get out!” you yelled at the same moment that Gara spun to look at them. It gave you the reprieve that you needed to open the container and flung the blue shimmering mist at her. She let out a guttural scream and disappeared.

You sat up and looked at them angrily. “What did I say about opening the door?” you yelled. Then your soul screeched in agony and you had to curl in on yourself to keep from blacking out. 

“I told you that I would come in if I heard screaming,” Sans said simply. You felt him scoop you up. “Hold still, love.”

“I’m fine,” you murmured but buried your face in his shirt anyway.

“Yes, your bloody and shredded legs seem fine,” Edge snarked.

“I think her arm is broken, too,” Sans said coolly.

“Still fine,” you said. “Well, I will be. With a little healing.”  _ And a fucking long conversation about that Google form. _

Sans settled onto Edge’s couch with you despite your bitching that your legs were bleeding everywhere and would stain the upholstery. Edge simply rolled his eye lights and gave you a withering look. 

“What the fuck happened to you?” Comic hissed, shoving himself back from his computer and ripping his headphones off. You could hear Red yelling through the headphones, his voice tinny. He blipped over to the side of the couch and looked you over with a critical eye and probably a check. “HP’s even dinged. What the fuck?”

“I’m fine,” you repeated.

“I’ll go get Paps,” Comic declared, then disappeared into the void.

“Are you comfortable enough?” Sans asked. Edge shoved a monster candy into the hand of your non-broken arm.

“Yup. Be more comfortable if you put the guys on speaker so we know they aren’t being brutally murdered while you fuss over a minor boo boo.”

Sans made an irritated noise. “I can hear them over my earpiece,” he told you and, yeah, in retrospect you probably should have remembered his earpiece. 

There was a soft pop of teleportation and Comic reappeared with Papyrus on his arm. He looked a little wobbly from the teleport but he let Comic steady him while he took in your injuries. “I see you have been up to your shenanigans again, Friend Mage Ellie!” Papyrus declared.

“Yeah… You know me and my shenanigans. You got any healing juice to help me out?”

Papyrus scoffed. “Of course. The Great Papyrus always has a reserve of friendship magic for his very best friends!” He walked over to you, his hands already glowing emerald. He leaned in close to get to the break in your arm and you realized he looked… tired? Sad? Something.

“Hey,” you said softly.

He paused and looked at you. “Yes?”

“You okay?”

He huffed at you and went back to healing. “I am not the one whose legs look like spaghetti noodles and whose arm is in too many pieces!”

Huh. A deflection. You made eye contact with Comic over his shoulder. He shrugged helplessly and pulled his headphones back on. “Yeah, yeah, I’m back. Quit ya bitchin’,” he said. You couldn’t hear Red’s response but you were sure it was loud and very, very colorful.

“Not that it matters because my greatness allows me to heal Friend Mage Ellies wounds just fine, but where is Jupiter?”

“Work,” Edge said.

“And Blue?” Papyrus asked. 

“He and Stretch are on a brotherly bonding day,” Edge said.

Papyrus didn’t respond to that. He simply shifted his focus from your newly healed arm to your shredded legs. You tried not to yelp as his hot magic knit your skin back together. You had a theory that the skeletons struggled to heal skin painlessly because they didn’t have it; any time they had to get at your skin or muscles it hurt like hell. Their magic felt fine on your bones but they were used to healing those. Toriel and Asgore always seemed to be better at healing wounds that tore through your squishier parts.

Thankfully, your brain did you a solid and let you tune out for most of the leg healing. By the time Papyrus was done, Comic had retrieved a pair of nice stretchy yoga pants from your house. You changed into them, splashed some water on your face, and felt like a person again. When you returned to the living room, everyone was looking at you. You awkwardly waved and then made your way back to the couch. They were waiting for an explanation and, though you owed it to them, you really didn’t relish the idea of talking about the Google form situation with Sans. You knew he wasn’t cheating on you, you did, but a small part of your soul whispered that he left you awful fast for Nora in that simulation.

You pulled your knees to your chest and made yourself as small as you could on Edge’s couch. Sans sat beside you and gently tugged you to lean against him. Time to rip off the bandaid. You took a breath and began. “So, um, that was Megaira. She’s… Well, the ancients had all kinds of names for her, but she usually goes by Fury. She’s a demigod. Remember, like in the Greek mythology? I gave you a crash course on it?”

Sans frowned. “You failed to mention that you know one of the demigods during your tutorial.”

“I hadn’t seen her in like two hundred years,” you said defensively. “I actually know all three of the Furies, her and her sisters.” 

“How well we talkin’?” Comic asked.

“Pretty well. She and Anne used to be a thing,” you admitted. “We get along generally.”

“So why’s she was treatin’ ya like a scratchin’ post?” Comic asked.

“Um. Well, I was trying to banish her, which really sucks for demigods.”

“Why did you need to banish her?” Edge asked.

The moment of truth. “It’s her job to kill people who cheat on their partners. The only way to stop her is for her to kill the victim or to banish her,” you said slowly, “and, for some reason, she has Sans on her list.”

Your boyfriend stiffened beside you. “What?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him so you looked at the floor. Your soul throbbed dangerously and your voice was too soft. “She said someone summoned her because you were cheating on me.”

He hurriedly turned towards you. “Love, you know I’m not, right? This is a mistake. I would never!” Before you could respond, he turned to Comic. “Judge me!” he nearly begged. “I have never! I would never!”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Comic said, quickly backing away and holding his hands up in surrender. “I love ya man, but I’ve seen your LV. I don’ wanna see all your sins crawling on your back.”

“Red then! He has LV; he’ll understand it!”

“Babe,” you said. You twisted so you could grab his face in your hands and look into his eye lights. He was panicking. He wasn’t cheating on you; you could see it there, confirmed on his face. You knew it, you trusted him, you really did, but that panic on his face calmed something in you. It shut up that little piece of your soul that insisted you could never really know someone, not really. “I know you’re not cheating on me.”

He froze and searched your face like you’d just searched his, then seemed to calm. “You believe me,” he repeated. He stroked your cheek like he was trying to convince himself you were still there with him.

“Yeah. That’s why I banished her; she wouldn’t listen to reason.”

He nodded slowly, then kissed you hard. You melted into it.

“It’s not that I don’t love this display of affection,” Edge said, “but we do need to discuss the rest of the case.” Sans kissed you a little longer, probably as a middle finger to his bestie, but eventually, he pulled away. “Alright, so your… friend… is responsible for the murders?” Edge asked.

“Yeah.” Then, you sat up like you’d been electrocuted. “Wait! She said she didn’t kill the monster.”

“She didn’t?”

“No,” you said, “and it doesn’t fit her MO anyway. He was single, right? No cheating to speak of there.” You sat up and tried to fling yourself off the couch, but Sans caught you before you made your escape. You whined impatiently. “I need to get to  _ that _ scene and help!” you insisted. “We took care of the human cases, but we have two murderers on our hands! We need to figure out what happened there before it happens again!”

The skeletons all turned to look at Papyrus, who narrowed his sockets at you and then shrugged. “I see no reason that she couldn’t since she will surely refuse to rest no matter what I say! Her HP is at its max since she was healed by the Great Papyrus.”

“See?” you said.

“Fine, fine.” Sans released you and you staggered off of the couch. Your legs felt a little weird under you, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle, no matter how worried your friends were looking at you.

“Can I, uh, get a lift?” you asked.


	3. The Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You visit the scene of the monster murder, have a nice big bro talk, and have a not-so-great time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter describes a murder scene, discusses possible infidelity and incest, and mentions some gross injuries (not graphically described)

“I gotcha,” Comic said. You latched onto his arm and he pulled you into the void, then the two of you reappeared in the muddied yard of a house in New New Home. The poor place was overrun with authorities, both human and monster alike. Embassy security was there, several police cars, and even a firetruck for good measure. You frowned at the once-perfect yard that was now disrupted by ruts from tires and muddy footprints. Someone had plowed right over a little sapling. It wasn't something that came standard with the houses in New New Home. Blargodles must have planted it. For some reason, it really bummed you out. You made a mental note to see if it could be healed before you left.

It was strange to see so many humans in New New Home; you wondered what negotiations they went through to be here. Probably they figured the case was connected to the previous murders, which would give the human authorities rights to access the crime scene? You didn’t actually know how any of that worked. Hell, you barely knew how mage and monster law worked. You had absolutely no idea what the humans were doing in their courts.

“Put your com back in,” Comic said. You nodded and did so; honestly, you forgot that you took it out before you summoned Gara.

“Okay,” you said. “Thanks for the lift.”

Comic gave you finger guns and said, “Lemme jus’ hand ya off to these assholes an’ I’ll get back to coms.”

“I heard that, sweetheart,” Red said behind you. You spun to look at him and he flashed a tired but still sharky grin at you.

“Whatever. See ya later, precious light of my life.” Comic winked and disappeared.

“‘E’s lucky ‘e’s a good lay,” Red muttered. “Come on.” You fell into step beside him. He moved at the same slow, shambling pace that he always did. You knew he was a damn good fighter but it was hard to remember that when he schlebbed along like this.

“So,” he said conversationally, “you’re friends with an Ancient Greek god.”

“Demigod,” you corrected. “And ‘friends’ is a strong word.”

“Sure. Why’s she think your boy’s cheatin’ on ya?”

You glanced over at him. His voice had an edge to it, a cold blade that you weren’t used to hearing. He looked angry. Your soul flipped uncomfortably. Of course he was angry with you because one of your ‘friends’ tried to murder one of his people. You banished her, sure, but you still led a threat to his brother’s door. “I didn’t expect that. I’m really sorry,” you said.

If you’d looked away, you would have missed the naked shock on his face. He stopped walking and his sockets narrowed at you. “Why’re you sorry? Ain’t your fault if Black’s a fucking idiot.”

You took a second to think over what he was saying before finally managing to say, “What?”

“There any truth to her accusations?”

You felt like you stepped off an escalator wrong or maybe you just got a new, really strong prescription of glasses. The world seemed to shift quickly under your feet as you understood, everything coming into crystal clear focus. Red wasn’t pissed at you; he was pissed at Sans. He was worried about you; he thought that maybe Sans was actually cheating on you and he had murder in his eye lights.

“No,” you said firmly. You made sure to look straight at him so he could read your face. “He practically begged Comic to Judge him to prove it. He’s not cheating on me.”

Red Looked at you in that way he did sometimes (that all of the Judges did) when he was trying to figure out if you were telling the truth. It was the gaze you’d been avoiding since your soul was injured; you worried that the Judges would be able to tell that you were hurt. You held his gaze anyway. You were willing to do a lot of bullshit but you weren’t willing to let Red think that Sans cheated on you, not even to protect Hobbes. 

Finally, finally,  _ finally, _ Red nodded. “You ever think that changes, you tell me,” Red said. “None of that suffering in silence bullshit.”

“Red--”

“No,” he said, unexpectedly serious and harsh. “I didn’ stop yer last datemate from hurting you. I  _ will _ stop this one.”

You felt a fondness for Red bubble up. “Red,” you said again. He looked down at his boots and shuffled them in the mud. “You didn’t know. I didn’t tell you.”

“I’mma Judge, sweetheart, an’ I shoulda known.” 

“Our family’s full of Judges. None of you knew. I made sure you didn’t know.”

Red huffed. “I’m the Judge from Underfell, not one of these Candyverses. Sans an’ Stretch wouldn’a been watchin’ for that shit, but I shoulda been. I’m from Underfell. I shoulda known.”

“Okay,” you said. “I promise to tell you if Sans ever hurts me like that.”

Red nodded jerkily and continued his shamble towards the house. You followed him across the yard. There was a bored looking fish monster at the door that stopped you both to check your IDs. There was no way that they didn’t know who the two of you were, but Red himself insisted that everyone from interns’ to Asgore’s IDs be checked, no exceptions, unless you wanted Red’s boot to take exception to your jaw. He’d only gotten more serious about it since the Hueline incident. Gods help the security guard that smiled all friendly and didn’t ask for his ID.

They let you pass. The house was nearly identical to the other crime scenes. Like every other scene, there were obvious signs of a struggle. It appeared that most of the fight took place in the living room. The couch was flipped and the coffee table was broken. “Looks like there were two glasses on the table when it happened,” Red told you, gesturing to some glass shards on the ground.

The others had blood all over the place, but monsters don’t bleed. Instead, there was weird jelly stuff and the scorch marks of magic. The furniture was overturned, some of it scorched or slashed. It looked like someone went out of their way to make it look like Gara killed this monster, too. The real question was why they bothered and how they knew what the original crime scenes looked like.

The biggest difference was that this scene appeared to be completely ransacked as well, almost like whoever killed the monster also searched the house for something. 

Well, that and the most overwhelming alliumagic you’d ever felt.

It didn’t hit you right away. You had a couple minutes to look around the room before the first hints of it wafted over you. From there, it was a matter of seconds before it completely overwhelmed you. You didn’t realize you dropped to the ground and curled into the fetal position. All you knew was the horrible, oppressive magic that clawed at your soul. It was heavy and dark, like the brackish water left trapped in houses after a hurricane. It reeked of death and terror and was so thick that it felt like you were drowning in rotting milk. You couldn’t breathe; your mouth and throat and nose were full of it. It was somehow familiar, though you had never experienced it before, of that you were sure. It felt like it had hands grabbing you, holding you, dragging you under, and that you would never be able to escape them. It hurt. Your soul hurt, your lungs hurt, your skin was on fire where it touched you--

Then you were in the cold of the void.

And on the grass outside.

You could still feel the hands grabbing at you, trying to pull you back. You screeched and fought them, unwilling to be drug back under. It felt like they were tearing your skin off, trying to rip out your soul, your eyes--

“Goddamn it Ellie! Calm your tits!” someone roared at you.

“Shuddup ‘bout her tits, asshole! Ellie, you’re ok, calm down!”

“Eleanor? What’s happening! Report!”

Slowly those hands released you. You blinked and looked around owlishly. You were outside the house with Red and Mutt both leaning over you. There were angry red scratches on your arms where you tried to fight off the grabby hands. Your eye hurt for some reason.

“Report!” Edge commanded in your ear.

“Dunno, boss. We walked in an’ she screamed an’ thew ‘erself on the ground. We ‘ported ‘er outside.”

“Eleanor?” Sans asked. He sounded calm and business-like, which you knew meant he was panicking, probably restraining himself from teleporting over to you immediately.

“‘M okay,” you managed. You took a shaky breath and tried again. “Sorry. Um. Really bad alliumagic in there.”

“Did it feel like your friend’s magic?” Edge asked.

“What? No. Gods no. It was…” You trailed off. You didn’t know how to explain it other than, “It was the worst thing that I’ve ever felt in my entire life.” You looked at Mutt desperately. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back in there. I’m sorry.”

“Hush, love, no one wants you to,” Sans cooed.

“There’s another thin’,” Red said. “Uh, doll, ya got kinda beat up in there?”

“What?” Sans barked.

“I think I did that to myself,” you said, eerily calm. “It felt like there were hands holding onto me.”

“The scratches, yeah, but your eye,” Red insisted. “Ya gotta shiner. There’s no way that ya jus’ did that. Looks older ‘n that.”

You blinked. “I got in a fight with Gara earlier but Papyrus healed me.”

“You definitely didn’t have a black eye when you left,” Sans said. “You’re saying that just being around that magic injured her?”

“Seems like,” Mutt said.

You groaned. “Okay, we’ll just add that to the list of mysteries.”

“Listen, you stay here,” Mutt said, “an’ Red an’ I’ll go in an’ get a magic signature and finish the scene. We’ll figure it out.”

“What if it hurts you too?” you asked. The idea of letting anyone go in that house made you want to throw up.

“Been in there all mornin’ an’ we haven’ tried to claw our arms off,” Red said with a shrug.

“We’ll be quick,” Mutt said.

“I don’t want her left outside alone,” Sans chimed in.

“Sans. There’s an Embassy guard right there, plus like a dozen police officers and firefighters. There are people everywhere. Alone isn’t the word for it.”

You heard Sans mutter something about them not being  _ his _ people but he let it go. You put your forehead down on your upturned knees and tried to breathe through the throbbing pain and panic in your soul.

“Love, are you alright?” Sans’s voice cut through the haze and you snapped to attention with a  _ my soul doesn’t hurt _ smile on your face even though he couldn’t see you.

“Yeah, yeah. I will be anyway. That was… intense.” 

There was a pause, then Sans started talking again. “You know, I’ve heard that there’s a new computer game where you have to hunt ghosts.”

“Yeah?” Comic asked simply to egg him on.

“Yes. You have a van and you visit various haunted locations. I thought we may be able to use it as a team building exercise. Edge?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. I can ask the chief financial officer at the Embassy if they’ll fund it.”

You grinned at the joke he was setting up. Yesterday, Asgore called Sans into his office to discuss a new responsibility that he thought Sans was the right monster to handle. You were planning a party to celebrate tomorrow night, actually.

“Sans, there’s been a request for a video game to be purchased as a team building exercise. Thoughts?” Edge asked, voice sounding for all the world like he was genuinely asking.

“Well, as the Embassy’s CFO, I think I would have to use some company time to try the game to see if it really is worth our money,” Sans shot back.

You couldn’t help but smile. Sans had low-key been doing the job of a CFO for years; it was about time Asgore made it official, in your opinion. Sans was now not only the second (er, third if you count Asgore) in command at the Embassy, but entirely in charge of the financials. It was a big fucking deal and you couldn’t be prouder of your math nerd.

“You do have some wicked time off,” Comic pointed out.

Sans huffed. “I’m not allowed to look at anything. It might ‘damage my vision permanently.’” You could actually hear the air quotes over the phone.

“I dunno, babe. Might be worth it for a video game,” you said.

“Don’ listen to ‘er,” Mutt chimed in. “It might hurt the baby.”

There was quite an uproar on the coms at that little quip, what with Sans sputtering at Mutt and everyone else laughing hysterically. Slowly, slowly the pain in your soul eased and you felt like you could breathe again. You knew that was the entire point of that conversation, to help you feel better, and it made your pained soul feel a little warmer. 

At least it did until you felt a familiar prickle of alliumagic. You looked up wildly. “Shit,” you groaned.

“What?” Sans and Edge asked simultaneously.

“Apparently stored banishing spells aren’t as strong as I thought.”

Standing on the other side of the yard looking like hell on wheels was Gara. There was literal smoke coming off of her like she’d recently been on fire. Her eyes were flashing red and her hair was mussed. You felt it the second she saw you, a shiver of danger running down your spine. You were on your feet in an instant, holding your hands out placatingly. “Gara, listen, I’m so--”

In a blink, she was in front of you and hauling you up by your throat. You felt her claws prick at your skin a little. She wasn’t squeezing, wasn’t trying to kill you, but you could see and feel her fury snapping around her like a storm. “You fucking banished me!” she growled. “Do you have any idea how fucking terrible it is to fight your way out of the fucking Prison of the Banished? I got every one of my bones broken multiple times! I was set on fire! Have you ever been set on fire, because now I have!”

You kicked your feet a little to remind her that you couldn’t really talk right now and she glared at you before dumping you unceremoniously on your ass. “If you were literally anyone else I would eviscerate you,” she said, “which is something else that happened to me, by the way.”

“It’s been like half an hour,” you rasped.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because time passes the same here as it does the realm of the gods.” She looked down at you and quirked a brow. “What the hell happened to you?”

You shrugged. “I’m sorry I banished you, but Sans is definitely--”

“Oy! God bitch!” you craned your neck and saw Red behind you. His hands were sparking with red magic. “Get away from ‘er!”

Gara grinned. “Sans Serif! You have been found guilty of infidelity, and the person you cheated on is one of the few in the universe I can stand. Your sentence is death, to be carried out immediately.” She held out a hand and her bow appeared in it. “And I’m going to fucking enjoy it.” She drew back her other hand as if she was drawing back an arrow and, in the next instant, a shaft of blue electric magic appeared on the string. She took aim directly at Red’s soul. You gasped and threw up a shield instinctively and Red disappeared and reappeared two feet to the left of where he’d been standing. The arrow exploded against your shield, shattering it in the process. You felt the reverb of magic shooting up your arms and directly into your soul. Having a shield broken stung on a normal day, but on a day when your soul was already hurting it was nearly excruciating. You were vaguely aware that you’d kept your feet under you, which was as big of a surprise as the attack itself was.

“Gara! Stop!” you gasped.

“The fuck are you on about?” Red yelped.

“Really? Fine! Fine. Your full charges include infidelity against the mage, your collared, a clone of your mage, and your own fucking brother. I’ve put down a lot of scum and you are really the bottom of the barrel, asshole. Just admit it so she can have some gods damned closure!”

“What? Crazy bitch! ‘Ve never cheated on Sans an’ definitely not wit’ Black’s mage or my bro!”

"Gara!" you yelped. You planted yourself between her and Red. "You said if I banished you then you wouldn't have to kill Sans! Also, that's not Sans!"

She didn't even spare you a glance. Her chest began emitting that gray glow again and you snapped at her. "Hey! Gara! Listen to me!"

"Special summons," she hissed. "Can't undo it."

"What? No, there has to be a way!"

She didn't answer you. Instead, she took aim at Red's soul again, eyes cold and calculating. You'd seen this side of her a few times and it never ceased to terrify you. You shifted so you were in front of her again, hands up, willing her to stop.

She grabbed you by the throat and threw you to the side. You were moving too fast, you realized. If you hit the house it was going to really hurt. You braced for impact, but it never came. Instead, your soul pinged blue and you were caught with enough force to knock the wind out of you. You looked around and found Mutt in the doorway of the house, one hand extended and one eye light burning violently. He crooked his finger at you and you flew into his arms.

“Time to go!” Mutt said, and you felt yourself pulled backward into the void.


	4. The Smoking Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team puts their heads together to solve a mystery. Accusations are made. Sharks are discussed.

In the next second, you were somewhere else. Mutt had you clutched tightly to his chest and it took a second for him to let you go. “Hey, nice catch, bud,” you said, patting his arm.

“Heh. Must be a natural talent. Gods know Sans never took me out back to play catch,” he chuckled.

“You’re lucky I didn’t leave you out back in someone’s dumpster, you ungrateful termite!” Sans said. He plucked you out of Mutt’s arms and pulled you to him, fussing at your eye. 

You tried to swat his hand as he poked at it. “Hey! That hurts,” you told him.

“It looks like it’s been there for at least a day!” he said with a frown.

You shrugged. “It’s fine, babe. Just a black eye.”

“Papyrus?” he asked. 

That was the moment you realized you’d landed in Edge’s living room. Everyone was watching this little exchange. You forced back a blush; it’s not like you had anything to be embarrassed about. Papyrus stepped forward and pressed a glowing hand to your eye.

“Thanks Paps,” you said.

“Stuff and nonsense!”

“Are the rest of you alright?” Edge asked. You glanced around and realized that Red was here too, having stepped out of the void while you were being manhandled.

“Peachy, ‘cept that a crazy bitch thinks I’m stickin’ my dick in everyone in the tri-county area,” Red grumbled. He stalked over to Comic. “Ya know she was full o’ shit, right? I never--”

“You askin’ if I think you did the do with your bro?” Comic asked, raising a brow at him. Edge sputtered behind them and Mutt and Papyrus both stifled a laugh. “Yeah, pretty sure this is a misunderstanding, unless ya got a thing for incest that ya didn’ mention before ya got me the fancy bling.” He thumbed the collar to make his point and you were pretty sure you saw Red relax minutely.

“So… What, she’s got the wrong Sans then?” Edge asked. He eyed Comic like he might have to kill him, which, fair enough.

“Also not sleepin’ with any Papyri,” Comic said quickly.

“Neither am I,” your Sans declared. “Earlier she acted like I was her target, but she named both Comic and Eleanor as injured parties. Thus, if neither myself nor Red are cheating on one of them with the other, then I would say it’s safe to assume this is a mistake of some kind.”

“And, just so we are all clear, this skeleton is the only one I’ve ever smooched,” you said, reaching up to pat Sans’s face in the most annoying way possible.

“Not sure she’s worried ‘bout smoochin’,” Red said with a leer, but he looked relieved. Did he actually think that Comic was going to believe he was cheating? Your soul squeezed a little at the thought. Red liked to pretend he didn’t give a shit about his relationship with Comic, but you knew that wasn’t true. You heard about the time Comic got sick and Red flipped his shit. You don’t collar just anyone, after all. You were there for several drunken nights out when Red and Comic both loudly proclaimed that they would never settle down, not ever. 

To be fair, you weren’t sure you could call what they were doing “settling down”, but either way, they loved each other and were happy. It was adorable.

Papyrus pulled his hand back and frowned down at you.

“Sup?” you asked.

“It won’t heal.”

“It won’t…?”

“Heal!” he threw his hands up and stalked away from you. “I followed the healing handbook! The scratches are gone already! I’ve never met anything I couldn’t heal before but your eye won’t heal!” He set his jaw and shot another blast of magic into it. “Are you sure that this was not here earlier? It feels like it is a day old and is, for some reason, resistant to magic.”

You reached up and touched the bruise, hissing when you found it just as sensitive as when you first escaped the house. “Um.”

“Maybe we should see if Blue can take a look?” Sans said.

“Sure! Fine! Blue is far superior to me! Of course!” Papyrus stomped out of the room, leaving the rest of you looking around in confusion. 

“Uh… I’ll be right back,” Comic said, obviously just as confused as the rest of you. He blipped out of the room, presumably to find Papyrus.

“A black eye isn’t that big of a deal,” you said. “Definitely not worth upsetting anyone. It’ll heal on its own in a couple of days.”

Sans frowned, but before he could say anything, Mutt spoke up. “‘S it possible she thinks there’s only one Sans?” he asked. Everyone’s heads snapped to him and he shrugged. “She said ‘Sans Serif.’ That’s all y’all. What if she didn’ get the memo on the whole multiverse thing?”

You all exchanged Looks. It made sense. If Sans and Comic and Red were all the same person, then they would certainly seem to be cheating on people. 

“Who slept with a Papyrus then?” you asked. It wasn’t your Sans; he told you that you were his first partner. It had been hard to believe at the time, but he wouldn’t lie to you about it. Everyone looked around at each other but no one looked particularly guilty. You clamped your hand over your mouth to hold off a squeak. Could it be that Papyrus and Blue’s will-they-won’t-they’s relationship had, in fact, blossomed? Secret dating, maybe? That would be wonderful. Of course, that didn’t explain why Papyrus just pitched a fit about asking Blue to heal you, but Papyrus was a complicated guy. Who knows what’s going on in that skull?

During the stare off, Sans’s phone went off. You recognized the tone as the one that he set for the Horrortale brothers. “Mars?” he asked, answering the phone on the second ring. Sans stiffened at whatever Mars said. “Get to Edge’s house. Now.” Sans hadn’t even hung up the phone when the pop of teleportation announced Mars’s arrival. He was hunched over a little, navy blue sweat dripping down his skull. His hoodie was skewed and there was a hole through the front of it. He was still holding a large soft drink and a burger, despite his disheveled appearance.

“Anyone know why the fuck one o’ yer baddies’s tryina skewer me?” he asked.

“It seems that she’s just after any Sans,” Edge said. “We need to get to Blue and Neo. Now!”

“I’ll get Neo; Red, you get Blue,” Mutt said. 

“And here I thought I was a special flower,” Red said mournfully.

“She attacked me, too!” Sans spat.

“Don’ worry, honey, you can be a pretty flower wit’ me.” He winked, then disappeared into the void.

“What Papyrus did you sleep with?” you asked Mars while Sans squawked at the indignity.

Mars’s eye light shrank and he stared at you. “The fuck you talkin’ about? ‘Ve never slept with a Paps.”

“Huh,” you said. “It’s gotta be Blue or Neo, then.”

“What the hell?” he asked with feeling. “Wait, you think Paps an’ Blue’re a thing now?”

You shrugged and were about to answer when twin pops of teleportation lead to all of the Sanses finally being gathered in one place, plus Edge, Hobbes, and Papyrus (who was still fuming somewhere with his brother). As soon as Neo’s boots hit the ground, he was gawking at Mars. “Shit! Ya hurt?” he asked gruffly. He rushed to Mars and began inspecting the hole in the hoodie.

“‘M fine,” he said, but he stood still for Neo to complete his inspection. “Luckily there ain’ much meat on my bones. Heh.” Neo calmed and chuckled, then stole a sip of the soft drink. You grinned when Mars let him.

Stretch showed up a couple of minutes later; apparently he paid for the lunch that he and Blue were splitting before following him. Sans quickly explained the problem to everyone and they all looked at him like he was crazy. Finally, Blue spoke up. “So the alliumede that is friends with Eleanor but also attacked her earlier has us all confused for one another and is trying to kill us because we cheated on our mates? Can we not just explain the situation to her?”

“She doesn’t seem very reasonable since I, uh, banished her,” you said with a wince. “I’ve seen this before. She has a sort of… hunting mode? She shifts into it when she finds a target. It’s sort of like that thing where sharks focus on one seal and won’t do anything else until they kill it?”

“What’s this now?” Sans said, horrified.

“Yes, the human authorities studied it to learn about human serial killer behavior,” Papyrus added brightly.

“Why d’ya know that?” Mars asked. He didn’t sound horrified as much as interested.

“He loves true crime,” Blue said.

“No way!” you said. You held out your fist for a bump. “True crime bros forever! You listen to any of the podcasts?”

“Obviously,” Papyrus sniffed. He bumped your fist and smiled at you. “When Sans stops being a plebian mongoose he even joins me for--”

“Is there any way we can refocus on the demigod that is trying to murder all Sanses?” your Sans interrupted sweetly.

“An’ what the hell’s true crime?” Neo added. “Ain’t all crimes true? Thought this ‘verse didn’ like it when you did crimes.”

You waved it off. “I’ll tell you about it later. Anyway. She hasn’t totally transformed yet, so I might be able to talk her down. She isn’t actively trying to hurt me so I should try talking to her. I have the best chance of getting out with all of my limbs still attached.”

“No,” the room of skeletons chorused together.

“You’re not going to risk yourself like that, love,” Sans told you. “We saw that arrow shatter your shield like it was nothing. You don’t stand a chance if she decides to fight. No, we need another plan.”

You frowned at him but he didn’t even bother to acknowledge your irritation. “I stand a chance,” you muttered petulantly.

“Why now?” Stretch asked and everyone turned to look at him. “I mean,” he continued, “Ellie and Black have been gettin’ down for three years. Sans and Red have been sleeping together--”

“Not much sleepin’ goin’ on, bud,” Red said smugly. 

“--at least that long. Why’s it suddenly a problem now?”

That gave everyone pause. 

“Maybe she jus’ got released from somewhere?” Mutt suggested.

“Last I heard, she was out of the biz. She said someone summoned her,” you said slowly. “She assumed it was me, but I didn’t. Well, not originally. That means someone else summoned her and sicced her on Sanses.” You scrubbed a palm down your face. “We just need to figure out how to unsummon her.”

“Makes sense,” a voice said behind you. “Maybe you should banish me again, see if that works.”

Everyone spun on their heels to find Gara leaning casually against the doorframe of the kitchen. She flashed you a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes before focusing on Red. “Found you,” she said. “Now, let’s just get this over with so I don’t have to keep tracking you. It’s just irritating at this point.” She held out her hand for her bow to appear, but you grabbed her arm before she could manifest it. She visibly startled and looked down at you.

“Gara, stop it! I told you that Sans isn’t cheating on me!”

She huffed at you. “And I told you that of course he fucking is. Men are liars, Nora, every fucking one of them. Sorry, babes.” She shrugged you off as easily as you would a kitten. “‘Sides, it doesn’t really matter if he did it or not. It’s a special summons.”

“What’s that mean?” 

“It means that someone with a far higher pay grade than me wants ‘im taken out. Sounds like you got friends in powerful places. Now, move.”

“No,” you said. “Dude, it’s multiverse bullshit! There’s six different Sanses in the room. They’re all loyal to their partners; they just happen to have the same name. And face. And probably DNA.”

Gara frowned at you, glancing between you and the skeletal huddle. “Huh. Well. I gotta say that’s a new one. You’d think that after thousands of years I’d be used to weird mortal bullshit.” She fished her phone out of her bra and tapped at it. “Ugh. It’s definitely an error, but a ------ put in the summons. I can’t ignore that, not if I want me and mine to keep our heads.” Whatever name she said garbled out and sounded like static. You blinked and looked around at the skeletons, but they all looked as confused as you were. Weird. Usually she could state who the summoner was in front of the victim. “So. I gotta kill someone, even if the whole multiverse conspired to screw all y’all over.”

You felt the air shift around you as everyone called up their magic. You knew they were strong, but you also knew that Gara’s magic would drop an accused in one hit. If a single arrow touched any Sans, they’d dust (which really made that hole in Mars’s hoodie even worse. How close had he been to dusting and none of you would have known?). You shuffled so you were between her and them and felt Mutt and Edge step up beside you, too.

“That’s not fair, Gara,” you said evenly.

She laughed. “Yeah, ‘cause the universe is known for being  _ fair.”  _ She crossed her arms and blew a stray hair out of her face. “You’re acting like they’re all innocent.”

“They are of this particular crime!”

She glanced down at her phone and then back up at a point behind your shoulder. “You sure ‘bout that, cupcake?”

Everyone turned and followed her stare to Papyrus. He and Comic had just come back in through the sliding glass door that led to the backyard where Edge and Stretch kept their chickens. 

Papyrus didn’t respond; he just shuffled his feet and looked down at the floor, his face turning a deep shade of orange.

There was a few seconds of heavy silence before Comic broke it. “What’s this now?” he asked, voice just on the edge of a snarl. “Which of you assholes--” He stopped and his narrowed eye lights landed on Blue. “Was this y--”

“Honestly Sans! I am an  _ adult!” _ Papyrus interrupted with a little stomp. “I do not need you to defend my honor. Besides, that’s over now. It doesn’t matter.”

“You had an entire relationship  _ and _ broke up and I didn’t know about it?” Comic said incredulously.

“Really not the point, sweetheart,” Red said.

Papyrus crossed his arms and turned away. The look on his face was incongruous with Papyrus’s normal happy-go-lucky act. He was genuinely upset about all of this.

“So anyway,” Gara continued with a shrug, “I’m really sorry, I guess, but I’m going to have to do my job.” She turned to you with something like a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay, hon, a lot of people go back to their piece-of-shit boyfriends. That’s part of why I exist: to help girls like you move on. You can do better, and you’ll realize that once I extinguish him. Then, maybe me and you and Anne can all get cocktails.”

“No! No no no, no extinguishing!” you said quickly. “Sans didn’t do anything wrong, it was--”

“This is for your own good,” Gara said. She snapped her fingers over her head and suddenly she was transforming. You tried to yell at her to stop, but a wind blew off of her that was so strong that your protests caught in your throat. You’d seen her totally transform a couple of times before, but it was horrifyingly fascinating every time. It reminded you of one of Alphys’s animes. Her short club dress lengthened and shifted until it was knee-length and a deep brown, something clearly from ancient times. The high heels became a pair of sandals that sported laces that criss-crossed their way up to her knees. White gloves appeared and moved up her arms to the elbows. A forest green cloak descended onto her shoulders and whipped around her legs.

The biggest transformation was her hair. Before, it was long and black, styled like every club girl you’d ever seen. During the transformation, the hair gathered together to form what looked like thick dreadlocks that were (ugh) wriggling. She did a little anime spin and stopped with one hand in the air holding her bow. 

“So that’s what that’s like to see in real life,” Stretch deadpanned.

“Hey, uh, anyone ever tell ya that your dreads are actually snakes?” Mutt asked, his voice going a little high pitched.

“ **I shall make a bargain with you** ,” she said, all humor gone. She was 100% Megaira Fury, The Great and Power, the Bane of the Unfaithful now. Her eyes were cold and dead; the only thing that distinguished them from shark’s eyes was the deep red color. “ **I will let you pick who you want me to kill. It is a generous offer; you mortals should be grateful. Select the Sans Serif that shall be vanquished.** ”

“Uh,” you said.

“We really don’t have a least favorite?” Stretch said. “I mean, all joking aside, they’re all our brother or friend or whatever so--”

Megaira gave your group an unimpressed look.  **“If you prefer, I can just kill them all then. Zeus knows a couple of them deserve it.”**

“Time to go,” Mutt said.

You felt him grab your arm, but you also saw Megaira lunge for you, poised to grab you. Your brain did some (possibly bullshit) math and decided that you wouldn’t make it into the void before she grabbed you, which meant that wherever they were going, she would be going, too. 

Nah.

You wrenched your arm out of Mutt’s grasp and felt more than heard the teleporters yank everyone out of the room. You didn’t know where they went, not really, but you were pretty confident it was somewhere safe. It was probably the Embassy basement, the safest place in Ebbott. 

Good. 

You swallowed and turned around to face the now-transformed demigod that you just pissed off. Again. 

Fantastic.


	5. A Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story reaches its conclusion! New friends(?) are met, old friends are seen in a new light, secrets are revealed, and a Big Life Choice is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There are snakes, choking, and LOTS of discussions of infidelity in this chapter!
> 
> Enjoy the final chapter of Sans's fifth day of vacation! It's definitely the longest day they've had yet!

“So,” you said slowly, “maybe now we can all calm down?”

Megaira looked at you, all of her thousands of years of life visible in her eyes like it rarely was. “ **This does not change anything** ,” she said. “  **I will find and destroy them** .”

“That really isn’t necessary.”

She turned away from you and continued to stare at the spot where they disappeared. You had no idea how her tracking thing worked, but you figured that the protections on the Embassy would keep her out. Of course, you sort of thought that was true of New New Home, too. You needed a plan before she (1) teleported herself to the Embassy or (2) they teleported back here to try to save you like morons. 

“What if you used me as a hostage?” you suggested. You heard Sans start barking at you in your earpiece but ignored him for now. “Like… Um, if any of the Sanses face certain death to rescue me, they will have earned the right to live?”

She turned back to you. “ **You are asking for a labour to absolve them?** ”

“Yeah,” you said, drawing the word out. You wracked your mind for what you knew about labours. It was just like a trial, right? One that the gods agreed to and, if completed, led to some benefit for the mortal? Right? You weren’t sure and this was a bad time to not be sure.

“ **Of what benefit is it to me if I agree? If they fail, I will kill them. If I do not agree, I will kill them. The pot is not sweet enough for me to partake, mage.** ”

“You want a better deal?” She inclined her chin. “Fine. Um. What do you want, exactly?”

Quick enough that you could swear that she teleported, she had a firm grip on your chin. She twisted your head so that she could look into your eyes. After a long moment, she released you and backed up. “ **Your soul** ,” she said.

“If they don’t come to rescue me, you want to take my soul?” Your mouth was dry.

She nodded. “ **Much can be done with a mage soul, even one as damaged as yours. That is the bargain. If they rescue you, I will remove their sentence. If they fail, I will destroy them and harvest your soul** .”

You gaped at her. “Um. They just have to come here, right? Not actually fight you?”

“ **That is the coward’s way.** ”

“That’s the only way I’m taking the deal.”

You watched her waver. For some reason, Megaira wanted your soul. A lot.

“ **Alright** ,” she said finally.

“Do not take that deal, Eleanor! Do not put your soul on the line! Do you hear me!” Sans voice yelled over your earpiece.

She held out her hand and you took it after only hesitating for a moment. Golden snakes of light danced up both of your arms. The gold was flecked with the blue of integrity and you recognized it for what it was: a magically bound promise. Now if either of you broke it, you died.

Cool. Very low stakes.

Megaira didn’t drop your hand like you expected her to; instead, she used it to drag you towards the door. “Where’re we goin’?” you asked.

“ **I am not going to wait around here for your suitors to come back for you. I am no fool.** ”

“Still only dating one of them.” You dug your heels in, but she was a literal goddess so you didn’t have much luck with that. She simply drug you along as if you were a tiny dog on a leash; your weight was completely negligible to her.

“I hate to break this to you, but we are here for our mage.”

You craned your neck and grinned to see all of the Sanses standing in the living room behind you. They probably heard the whole discussion over your earpiece (that was the plan, after all) and ported themselves right in before she could leave with you. They all looked grim, but Sans looked downright pissed. Yeah… he wasn’t happy that you hadn’t teleported with them.

Megaira spun around to face them, but didn’t release you. Instead, she yanked you against her like you were a hostage in a bad spy movie. That shit was insulting. You felt her claws at your throat and the snakes hissed by your ears. “Hey--” you started, but she tightened her grip on your throat, cutting off your air.

“You said if we came to rescue her we won!” Blue squeaked. That definitely didn’t help; if anything, her bruising grip only got tighter. You could read the tight worry and anger on Sans’s face.

“ **How do you know what deal I made with the mage?** ” Megara hissed. You tensed even more when one of the snakes stuck its weird snake head into your ear and flinched when it grabbed the earpiece it found there. “ **Ah, you cheated. Well, that means our deal is unfulfilled. Your soul and the lives of your suitors are forfeit.** ”

You fought against her grip and you felt the others call up their magic. One of the snakes replaced her hand on your throat and the hand snaked down to your sternum. Your struggling increased about a thousand fold when you realized that she was about to just yank your soul out of your gods damned chest in front of everyone, but you might as well have been fighting a tank. She was just so much stronger than you and the oxygen deprivation wasn’t helping. You felt actual fear welling up in your chest and--

“Gara! What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Your eyes widened as Anne stepped out from behind the horde of skeletons. Mutt had a loose grip on her arm and followed her until she was standing just a few yards from you and Megaira. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes flashed the blue-green of her magic as she stared down the demigod. “Let her go right now! You’re hurting her!”

“ **You have no power over me, mage** ,” Megaira said, but her voice shook when she did. Her grip tightened even more.

“How can you do this? Threatening to kill Ellie’s friends and trying to take her soul? What’s the matter with you? This isn’t right, Gara; you know that! Let her go! Right now!”

Megaira hissed in unison with the snakes that made up her hair, but Anne held her stare unimpressed. “Don’t do this right now. Not with me,” she said.

You felt Megaira convulse. Her grip tightened again and, for a second, you thought you were going to pass out. You scrabbled at the snake around your throat, but the snake was deflating, changing, becoming… 

Hair?

Then, Megaira let go of you entirely. She shoved you forward and Anne caught you. You gasped in sweet, glorious air and let her hold you up for a second before you chanced a glance at Megaira. Instead of the resplendent demigod that had been holding you hostage only seconds ago, the club girl that you saw at the crime scene stood there. She looked a little dazed before her eyes sharpened and focused on Anne. Pale gray eyes widened, all of the red of Megaira’s irises gone as quickly as it appeared. “Oh! Anne! You’re! Right here! It’s been a while!”

“It has,” Anne replied neutrally. You felt her magic curling around your throat where there were probably ugly bruises.

“I… um…” Gara looked away and twisted her fingers together in a way that reminded you a little of Papyrus. She looked miserable, as if she could actually experience misery without feelings. Your years of hanging out with her told you that she really couldn’t feel it, but your soul lurched anyway. She just looked so miserable. “Um. I didn’t expect that to happen. Obvs.” She carefully didn’t make eye contact with Anne, choosing instead to diligently check her heels. “This is why I wanted out of the business. Being Megaira is a fucking trainwreck most of the time.” She looked at you miserably. “Sorry, Nora.”

You sighed. “No, you’re not. But it’s fine. No harm done.” Sans made a derisive noise that you chose to ignore. You were actually surprised that he hadn’t snatched you from Anne to inspect your injuries yet; probably, he wanted you healed as much as possible. Had to be hell on his instincts, though.

“Can we please get back to the point?” he said irritably.

“Hey, you teleported!” you realized. “Are you okay? How’s the socket? Lemme see.”

“Not. Right. Now.”

That tone of voice told you that he was trying very,  _ very  _ hard to keep it together but if you pushed him he would be forced to say things he would regret for the next calendar year. You decided to let it go for now. 

“They rescued me,” you said. “You promised you’d mark them off your list if they rescued me.”

Gara nodded and gave you a wry grin. “Look at that. True love wins again, etcetera. Per my oath, I release you all from the bounties on your head.” She waved a hand and little wisps of smoke appeared over each of the skeleton heads. She tapped something on her phone and added, “Your bounty has been marked ‘complete.’ Try not to summon me on yourselves again.” She looked at each Sans in turn and paused at Blue. “You,” she said coolly, “are especially lucky that the mage made a deal, aren’t you?”

Comic’s head snapped around to look at Blue, sockets narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.

Blue visibly paled and looked down at his feet.  _ What the fuck? _

Suddenly, there was a loud crackle and little flames reappeared above each skeleton’s head. Gara gaped and then looked back down at the phone. “Uh… Well, I’m real sorry, but your bounty has been reinstated.”

“By who? You gave a magic oath!” you seethed.

“-----.” Whatever she said was blocked by the same static as before. She tapped at her phone. “It looks like I can’t cancel it this time.” She looked up. If you didn’t know better, you’d say there was actual panic on her face. “I can’t! Turn it off! I tried to tell you that someone higher up than me made the deal, but I thought they’d respect a labour!” She messed with the phone more before finally looking back up with raw horror on her face. “Look, some of you are clearly more guilty than others. Probably I can just kill him--” she indicated Blue-- “and fulfill the terms of the bounty.”

“That ain’t gonna work for us,” Red growled, stepping in front of the others.

“Gara--” Anne started

“Listen, I don’t make the rules!” she said, her voice nearly pleading. “Apparently there’s still a complaint against them. As long as there’s a complaint, I have to kill them. I… I can make it painless. He won’t feel anything.”

“Nope. Hard nope. Nope-ity nope nope,” you said, untangling yourself from Anne to move in front of Gara. Anne moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

“You can’t kill innocent monsters, Gara!” Anne said. “You have to say no!”

“I can’t just say no! Damn it, Anne, you have no fucking idea what we’ve been through!” She clenched and unclenched her fists like she wanted to strangle someone. “I didn’t come back because I just love the job so damn much. I had to. They threatened everyone I ever associated with! Said they’d kill ‘em all: my sisters, J.R., you and Nora--” She realized what she said a second too late, slamming a hand over her mouth and looking at you in horror. 

“Who said?” Anne asked gently.

Gara shook her head jerkily. “Don’t matter. But if I have to pick between literally everyone and that guy…” She gestured at a downcast Blue. “Well, the choice is pretty obvious.”

“Wait, you said that there has to be a complainant, right? Someone wronged by the victim?” you interrupted. “What if all of us agree that we don’t have an issue with them? Would that be enough to get rid of the bounty?” 

Gara paused. “Like you get all of their lovers together and they all tell me that they don’t have an issue with their guy?” You nodded. “Huh. Well… I guess that might work. I… we… We could give it a shot.”

“You don’t happen to have a list of who you need, do you?” you asked.

She frowned but accepted the notebook and pen that Sans handed her from his inventory. She used your back as a desk to make a list that you would all (hopefully) be able to read. When she finished, she handed you the notebook. When you went to read it, everything was fuzzy. It looked just like the Google Form on her phone had before. “I can’t read it,” you admitted.

Sans peeked over your shoulder, then took the notebook from you. “I, however, can.” He looked it over and then began reading it off. The list was longer than you expected but not unmanageable. “Comic and Eleanor are both here, of course. Papyrus. And… a few monsters and a couple of humans. This shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Lemme see the list,” Comic said. Sans handed it over. “I know most o’ these folks. The ones I don’ can be found by the Edgelord. Stretch, can ya see the list?” There were a few seconds of silence where you assumed that Stretch was answering in the earpiece (shit, Comic was gonna have to make you another one). “Thanks buddy,” Comic said. “Everybody know where they’re goin’?” All of the teleporters nodded and then disappeared, save your Sans who knew better than to teleport twice in one day in front of you.

Anne moved away from you to stand by Blue. As soon as she was out of Gara’s bubble, they both relaxed almost imperceptibly. Your soul gave a little pinch; it was weird to see them like this after all of this time. 

First loves really are a bitch.

“You ready to let me look at your socket while we wait?” you asked Sans. You were pretty sure he rolled his eye lights behind the stupid sunglasses, but you didn’t care. He was your love and, as such, was going to let you look at that socket if you had to wrestle him to the ground and hold him down to do it.

Hey, look at that. Your libido wasn’t totally exhausted and dead. Neat.

“While we are waiting,” Sans said as you checked his socket, “I do have a question.” Gara raised an eyebrow and he continued. “You said that one of the accusations is that someone cheated with a clone of Eleanor.”

“Not a question, but yup.”

“I think his question is: What the fuck does that mean?” you said helpfully.

“Uh…” Gara flipped through her phone for a minute before continuing. “It says something about a digital clone?”

Relief washed over you. “You mean the version of me from the simulation that Hueline ran? Phew. I thought there was an actual clone of me running around somewhere.”

Gara’s brow furrowed. “No. Well, maybe? But if it’s from a simulation, it’s a simulation with sentience. Like an AI, maybe.”

“Excuse me?” Sans deadpanned.

“Nope,” you said. “Nope, I reject that outright. Not touching that with a thirty foot pole.”

Sans glanced down at you, then let his eye lights flick back to Gara. “Do you have ways of getting in touch with the… simulation?”

Gara blinked. “I assumed  _ you _ do because you said you were collecting all of the complainants and the clone is one of them? Why did you think that the list had Nora on it twice?”

“I assumed it was a mistake.”

“Yeah, didn’t think that was a real thing,” you said.

“Oh. Um, yeah, I can…” She tapped on the phone for a minute, then made her way over to the TV. She turned it on and a face that you never, ever wanted to see again filled up the screen. But there was little doubt it was her, with her dark hair and her perfect eye linger. When she saw you, her eyes widened. You fought the urge to fight and/or flee. The last thing you wanted was for Sans to meet  _ her. _

“Hello? Ellie, is that you?”

You swallowed. “N-Nora?” you managed. 

“Oh my god! You’re okay! When you just disappeared on Gyftmas, we thought…” she trailed off. 

“You’re real?” you squeaked.

She smiled at you like you’d gone soft in the head. “Yeah, I’m real. Um. Where are you?”

You looked over at Sans helplessly, but he was focused on the screen instead of you. Your soul lurched. Was it possible for him to fall in love with an AI? You didn’t want to find out. You were about to speak up when the TV made a staticky noise and a version of Sans that you didn’t recognize appeared in the bottom corner. He wore a lab coat and glasses. He looked more like Comic than your Sans (no Fell chompers on this guy) but his eye lights were an emerald green. 

“Nora? What’re ya doin’?” he drawled.

“I found Ellie! Look! She’s on the other side of the screen!”

The new Sans swiveled to look at you. His sockets narrowed as he took you in. “Oh. Yeah, shoulda figured ya were an organic. What do you want?”

“Wait. Are you, like…” you trailed off and he sighed.

“An AI version of Sans Serif? Yeah. And my world was just fine before you did your multiverse bullshit to it and dropped a bunch of baby AIs in my lap, so thanks for that. They’re like toddlers hopped up on sugar with internet access and no responsible adults around. Somehow I became their adult, thanks to you. Now. What do you want?”

“We need Nora to tell Megaira Fury that she absolves all Sanses of any guilt of cheating on her,” your Sans said. You tensed. You really didn’t want him to know about Nora at all, furthermore the rest of it.

“That right? You organics really can’t keep your noses clean for more than five seconds can ya? Ya know, I never had alliumedes on my servers until you fucked with them.”

“I can assure you that we didn’t ‘fuck with them’,” your Sans said. “A doctor here did that against our will.”

“Huh.”

“Listen, can we just have her do the thing and then all pretend like this never happened? Please?” you pleaded.

Both Sanses looked at you with the same assessing stare, though one of them was tempered by love. The other was just creepy. Finally, the AI sighed and said, “Yeah, fine. But after that, I don’t want either of you showing up in my world again.”

“Sounds great,” you said, nearly hysterical. “So when it’s time, Nora just has to say that none of the Sanses cheated on her, because they didn’t, and then she’s good to go and none of us ever have to speak again ever.”

“Love that journey for us,” AI Sans drawled.

You felt two different arms wrap around you. Anne was on one side, holding you tight, and Sans was on the other, gripping just as hard. Neither of them totally knew what was going on, but they knew you. They could see that you were about to lose your shit and were doing what they could to comfort you. You shut your eyes, tried to forget the revelation that Nora is a fucking AI now, and waited for everyone to get back.

This stupid mess could not end fast enough.

***

It took nearly an hour, but eventually everyone was assembled. You stood awkwardly in a line with the other complainants facing the Sanses. On one side, you had Papyrus who looked like someone stole his candy or something. On the other side, you had a human with curly blonde hair and bright eyes. She said her name was Harley and she waved happily at Blue when she arrived. The other various humans all said hi to Blue when they arrived, too.

Blue looked like he was standing in front of a firing squad.

“Okie dokie, y’all. Let’s get started,” Gara said. “You all have reason to accuse one or more of these skeletons of infidelity. If you maintain your complaint, that skeleton will be killed. You may choose to withdraw your complaint if you want; totally up to you. No changing your mind or takesy backsies. Once you agree to forgive or not, it’s over. I’m not coming back for these guys again.”

Comic and Nora immediately absolved everyone (and then she was gone with a cute little wave that made you want to puke). You followed quickly behind with a wink at Sans. The other monsters and humans were quick to forgive as well, probably wisely sensing that any condemning would not work out well for them. 

Papyrus was the last to speak. He glared at the ground, wringing his hands and blinking hard. You glanced over and saw that Blue wasn’t looking at him either; he was just staring at the ground, his bright eye lights dim and withdrawn. “It’s your turn, Papyrus Serif,” Gara said. “You don’t have to absolve them.” She sounded nervous.

“I know! I feel no pressure at all and even if I did, the great Papyrus does not succumb to peer pressure!” He squared his shoulders and looked at Gara. “I do not wish to complain against any of the Sanses.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You sure, bud? You seem upset.”

“I’m sure! But I appreciate your totally overbearing and threatening concern!”

You could see that Comic was chomping at the bit to get to his brother, to hug him and figure out what the hell was going on here, but he didn’t move. Not yet. They had to wait for Gara to agree to remove the bounty officially.

She nodded. “You’re the only one here who actually got cheated on, I think,” she said. “But if you don’t want him punished, that’s not my business.” She tapped something on the phone and waved her hand, extinguishing the flames. She waited a minute then nodded. “Seems like it took this time.”

“Awesome! Thanks, everybody!” you said. The Papyri teleporters appeared (and with them, Edge and Hobbes) and grabbed people to take them back to wherever they came from. You watched silently as everyone disappeared, leaving you with just the skeletons, Anne, and Gara.

Gara shuffled her feet a little then said, “It was good to see you again, Anne.”

“You too, Gara.” There was an awkward silence before Anne sighed and said, “Maybe we could get a drink sometime? Catch up? Talk about that cryptic crap about someone threatening me and Ellie?”

Gara smiled what could have been misconstrued as a shy smile. “I’d really like that.” She paused, realized her mistake, and course-corrected. “I mean, that would be fun.”

Anne nodded and Gara blushed a little before turning to you. She clapped a hand on your shoulder. “And you,” she said, “need to be more careful with your soul. It’s not healthy to let it break like that, ya know?”

You willed yourself to not look guilty. “Right. Well, hopefully I’ll never be trapped in a simulation so a scientist can milk the determination out of my soul again,” you deadpanned.

“No shit? That’s where Nora came from? Was the scientist a dude?” she asked, voice dangerous.

“No.”

“Too bad. Would have loved to take care of that little problem for you.” 

“Hey, not to change the subject, but if you could not kill people in a way that makes them think monsters are murdering folks that’d be great,” you added quickly.

“Yeah, I guess I could’ve been more tactful. I’ll cut more brakes and use less magic. Alright, I’m gonna jet. Don’t end up on my shit list again; next time, I’ll actually kill you.” She jabbed a finger towards Blue, then another towards Sans. “I’m fucking watching you two.”

“If I ever cheat on Eleanor I would encourage you to kill me,” Sans said.

She grinned. “Don’t worry. I will.” She turned to Blue. “As for you--”

“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me. I get it. You have nothing to worry about from me. That’s… That’s not happening anymore.”

_ No, really, what the fuck. _

“Well, it’s been real,” she said. She raised a hand and a door appeared in front of her. She winked at you and stepped through the door, disappearing into the void.

Sans immediately rushed forward and began his process of checking you over. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He gave you a look that said he wasn’t buying your fineness but wasn’t going to force the issue for now.

You looked past Sans to where Comic was talking to Papyrus quietly. Paps kept shaking his head and pointedly not looking at his bro. You felt awful for him and whatever was going on, but you knew you weren’t really close enough to Papyrus to help. Instead, you stayed out of the way.

Stretch was talking to Blue, too, looking down at his older brother with a mixture of concern and horror. Blue was staring past him at Papyrus and a few blue tears had escaped his sockets to roll down his cheeks.

Mutt appeared beside you. “You ok, Raggy?”

“Yeah. Hey, have we not been paying attention or what?” you asked, gesturing towards Blue and Papyrus.

Mutt shrugged. “I dunno. I guess not.”

“It’ll be alright,” Sans said definitively.

Before he could say anything else, Papyrus was pushing Comic away and walking quickly towards Blue. Comic chased after him and Stretch moved to stand beside Blue, both looking at Papyrus with concern.

“Hello, Papyrus,” Blue said, a parody of his normally exuberant voice.

“I don’t forgive you,” Papyrus said.

“I know.”

“I’m very angry and hurt at you.”

Blue somehow got smaller. “I know.”

“But I do not wish you dead. If I did, I would kill you myself.”

Blue grinned a little helplessly at that. “I know that, too.”

Papyrus crossed his arms defensively. “Maybe someday I won’t be mad anymore, but right now, seeing you makes my soul feel like it weighs too much and my sockets get leaky. I do not want to see you, maybe not ever again but definitely not for a long time.” Blue nodded silently. “But we are family and I  _ will  _ see you nevertheless. We will go to family gatherings and simply try not to interact with each other as much as is possible. We will still exchange Gyftmas presents or it will be awkward.”

As if anything could be more awkward than this.

“But I need time,” Papyrus continued. “Maybe a lot of time.” He turned to look at Edge and Sans. “I wish to resign as monster ambassador.”

Blue’s head snapped up at that. “Papyrus, no, I--”

“You get no say in what I do or do not do,” Papyrus snapped. Blue looked away.

“But bro, you love being an ambassador,” Comic said.

“I do not. I want to try something new and I certainly do not want to spend every day with Blue in meetings and on planes and in hotels. I will hand in my formal letter of resignation later today,” he said. “Surely Blue, Frisk, and Toriel can amabass without me.”

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, then Sans spoke up. “If that’s truly what you want, we wish you the best, Papyrus.”

Papyrus nodded stiffly. “It is what I want. And now what I want is to go home, eat an unreasonable amount of ice cream, and watch my favorite movie series again.”

Comic stepped forward and caught his brother’s sleeve. “I’ll take ya, bro. And… Can I maybe stay? For the movies?”

“If you like,” Papyrus sniffed, but you could hear the longing in his voice. Your soul ached for him.

Comic shot Red a glance, received a small nod, and then pulled Papyrus into the void without looking back at Blue at all. As soon as Papyrus disappeared, Blue seemed to deflate. He looked every day of his four hundred years, shuffling his feet on the ground like he was awaiting execution.

“What the fuck did you do?” Red asked, his voice cold enough to freeze lava. He stepped forward to try to grab Blue by the shirt, but Stretch stepped in front of his brother, eye light strobing. 

“Leave him alone,” Stretch said. 

“Leave him alone?” Red snarled. “After what he did?”

“We don’t  _ know _ what he did,” Stretch insisted. “‘S not like they actually told us!”

“You can’t be this naive!”

“Hey!” you said sharply. You felt Sans’s grip tighten on you, but you crossed your arms anyway. “Look, Blue is still family, whatever else happened. And clearly he’s upset and doesn’t want to deal with a lynch mob right now. We all love him and can maybe give him some benefit of a doubt, right?” Blue looked at you gratefully. “Even if he did make a mistake, he’s still our Blue! So. Just let it go, yeah? It sounds like him and Paps didn’t want us to all know what was going on and it’s not fair to them to drag this out into the light because a demigod showed up and made them admit something happened.” You looked at Blue. “I have no idea what happened,” you said, “but even if you did fuck up, I still love you. I love Papyrus, too. You’re both my family. If you fucked up, I trust that you’ll fix it.”

Blue looked up at you with glittering eye lights and nodded. “Let’s head out, bro,” Stretch said, resigned. Blue let Stretch pull him behind him into the void.

Red rounded on you. “You really believe that shit you told ‘im?” he growled.

You didn’t hesitate. You couldn’t. “Absolutely. We all fuck up, but we’re not giving up on each other. If we write him off because of a mistake, what happens the next time I make one? Am I written off, too? How about you? Comic? Edge? What’re the rules, Red?”

Red sighed, some of his anger evaporating. “Yeah, yeah, fine.” He threw himself into an armchair hard enough that it scooted a few inches under his weight. Edge sighed and went into the kitchen.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Mars asked Neo and Hobbes, who both nodded. He pulled them into the void with him, leaving you, Sans, and Mutt standing in Edge’s living room.

“Is your car here?” you asked Sans.

“No.”

“Come on,” Red said, “I’ll drive ya home in Edge’s car.” 

“Thank you, Red, but Edge and I still have business today,” Sans said. “Mutt, would you take Eleanor home, please?”

“Eleanor has a voice and an opinion,” you pointed out, but Edge emerged from the kitchen before you could share said opinion.

“That is not necessary,” he said. “Black, I will read through the report and then we will discuss the second crime scene. Until I have had time to analyze the evidence, there isn’t much that we can do. You should go home and we will make a plan on Monday.”

“Monday?” Sans parroted back. “Monday? We have an active murderer on our hands--”

“A fact that Undyne, as head of security, is aware of.”

“--and you want to wait until Monday to discuss it?!”

“We simply do not have any more that we can discuss until Monday.” 

Edge stared Sans down, face completely bland and unaffected. Sans glared angrily and then huffed. “Fine. Monday.”

“Excellent! Then you should go home.”

As your group moved to the door, you voiced your current most pressing concern: “What do you guys want for dinner?” 

“Take out,” Mutt said immediately.

Sans groaned. “I can cook something!”

“Man, ‘m hungry. Come on, bro. Get some door dash to the gate, ‘port up there? More time for video games an’ naps.”

“Still not allowed to look at a television,” Sans said irritably.

“I’ll describe it for you, babe,” you said, planting a quick kiss to his cheekbone. “I want Mexican. Red and Edge, you two up for some Mexican and video games?”

Red sighed. “Yah. Sansy’ll prob’ly be late tonight. Come on, bro. The honey bun’ll prob’ly be late for the same reason.”

“I imagine so,” you said awkwardly.

Edge sighed. “It is a culinary travesty to get take out, but if you are inflicting it on my best friend, then I suppose I shall join you to share in the pain.”

“I’m touched,” Sans said. You weren’t entirely sure that he was joking.

The Underfell brothers ended up hanging out most of the night. Red and Mutt both had that ghost game that Sans mentioned. After a quick purchase, they set Edge up with it, too, and the three of them played together while you narrated for Sans and you both made fun of them when they got scared of ghosts.

Later, much later, snuggled in bed together, Sans stroked your hair and whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah, course. S’okay. Was fun,” you murmured, more asleep than not. You reached out to pat his ribcage without opening your eyes.

He chuckled. “While I’m glad to have that rousing endorsement, I was actually asking if you were okay after today’s mission.”

You shifted a bit so you could look up at his purple eye lights. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were worried we would simply write Blue off and the concept of us abandoning you seems to be a difficult one for you,” he said. “And, um, you have an AI clone.” He idly traced your arm and down your hip and back, holding your eyes. He was watching your expressions, you knew. “Not to mention your black eye,” he added. An out, if you really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh,” you said. Honesty time, she comes. The darkness around you somehow made it easier to admit that, “Yeah, okay, that’s hard for me. I, uh, I’m afraid? That someday this will all crash down around me? And if you guys were willing to get rid of Blue? I mean, how little would it take to get rid of me?” Your voice was small and quiet, but loud in the dark.

Sans pulled you tighter against him. “This family would rather get rid of me than you,” he said. “You are a part of us and we don’t give up on what’s ours.”

“But Blue--”

“Love, Red was angry, but he was never going to actually write Blue off. I’m sure he would have said some regrettable things if you hadn’t stepped in and it would be even harder for them to reconcile, but they would eventually.”

“How can you know that? What if that’s the line and he crossed it?”

Sans didn’t answer right away. He was thinking, you knew, so you let him. Finally, he said, “Once, my Alphys tried to murder me.”

That woke you the fuck up. “What?”

He didn’t let you sit up, instead keeping a tight grip on you. “She heard I was gunning for her position. She waited for me in the mists between Snowdin and Waterfall and attacked me. If Mutt hadn’t heard the fight, she would have dusted me. It’s where I got this scar,” he said, drawing your hand along the largest scar he had, the one on that cut across his scapulae. “And, after I healed, I forgave her. We continued to work together. I never trusted her as fully, but she was still my family. Edge had a similar experience with his Undyne and I imagine that the Candyverse monsters had equally terrifying betrayals that they forgave. If we can forgive that, I can assure you that we can forgive nearly anything.”

You traced the scar again and listened to him suck in a breath. “So you think eventually Papyrus will forgive Blue?”

Sans chuckled softly. “Papyrus doesn’t have it in him to hold a long term grudge. He will forgive, eventually, and things will go back to normal.”

“You don’t hold grudges either,” you told him.

“True.” He pressed a skeletal kiss to your neck. “It will take time, my love, but everything will be fine eventually.”

You made a noise of agreement and tilted your head to give him better access to your throat.

“Do you want to talk about the AI thing?” he asked softly.

You shook your head violently. You were pretty sure that you were never going to be ready to talk about that. Sans pressed another kiss to your neck. “Alright,” he said, “I will let it go if you promise to tell me when you need to discuss it.” You frowned at him and he gave you an unapologetic shrug. “Either that, or I’ll keep pestering you until you get annoyed and tell me.”

You sighed. “Fine. I promise.” It didn’t seem likely you’d ever have to keep that promise anyway. You doubted there was any hypothetical time when you would need to tell him about it, but if there was, you’d tell him. You could keep that bargain.

He smiled at you and kissed you again. “Now,” he said softly, “are you finished with your existential crisis?”

“Why? Have something else in mind?” you purred.

“I just thought that since we are in bed and not sleeping, we might put this bed to another use,” he said with a growl in his voice. “After all, my vacation is nearly over and we lost a lot of together time today.”

You laughed. “I would hate to send you back to work unsatisfied.”

For the rest of the night, your soul, your family, artificial intelligence, and grudges were the last thing on your mind.


	6. Secrets (BONUS: BLUE POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue is just trying to make dinner and be the bad guy in peace.

It took forever to convince Stretch to go home. Blue adores his baby brother and understands that he is simply concerned about him, but the last thing he wants to do is discuss his sex life with him. 

_ It would be easier if it was just sex, wouldn’t it? _

He pointedly doesn’t turn around when he hears the sound of a short cut. He is an older brother himself and has no doubt of what he would do if he watched a similar exchange between Edge and Stretch. He simply waits, pretending to be absorbed in the vegetables that he is chopping. It’s only fair, after all.

Sans grabs him, hauls him around, and slams him into the kitchen wall. He’s doing the empty skull thing and Blue waits for one eye to light… Yes, there, right on time. The strobing effect makes him nauseous but he does his best to look frightened and/or concerned.

He is neither. No matter what the Fellverse skeletons think of him, he was the Captain of the Royal Guard. If he didn’t want to be pinned to this wall, he wouldn’t be. But Sans deserves this, the opportunity to frighten and rip him apart. Blue doesn’t blame him and he certainly does not want to deprive him of it. No, it is better to simply let him do what he feels he needs to do to protect his brother.

“What the hell did you do?” Sans asks in the deep, scary voice.

“Probably exactly what you think I did,” Blue says, resigned.

“Why?”

That isn’t what he expected. He expected Sans to use Blue’s generous HP to bounce him off a few walls, not an actual question of his motives. As much as Blue wants to make this easy on Sans (and, by proxy, Papyrus), he can’t give him that. That would defeat the purpose of all of this.

“Why does anyone do anything?” Blue says with a shrug.

“Nah, baby blue. I thought a lot ‘bout it before I came over. You’re honorable an’ shit, not me an’ Red. You’d never cheat on someone, especially not Paps. So why don’ ya tell me what’s really goin’ on, yeah?”

All that thinking about it didn’t stop him from slamming Blue into a wall, but Blue chooses not to comment on that or the insulting nickname. Instead he says, “Just rough me up or whatever you plan to do. I have dinner to cook.”

Sans lets him down but doesn’t let go of his shirt. “Ya expect me to believe you just cheated on Paps? Why? For sex? I don’ think so.”

“People cheat all of the time, Sans, or did you miss that there is an entire goddess dedicated to eradicating those who do? It’s common. I’m not a small child; I am a grown monster who makes grown decisions. Some of those decisions are not kind. Or would you be less surprised if I were Black? Red?”

Sans’s grin turns sharp. “Nah, those two are so damn in love they’d never even look at someone else. Fine, ya want me to believe you were cheatin’? Sure. ‘Cause Paps wouldn’ sleep wit’ ya?”

It’s a dangerous question, a double-edged sword. If Blue admits that he and Papyrus did sleep together, Sans will likely lose what is left of his mind. He loves to infantilize his brother. However, if he says that yes, it is because Papyrus wouldn’t ‘put out’ it makes him even more of a villain. Besides, who knows what Papyrus has admitted to Sans already. It’s possible that Sans knows about the nature of their relationship and is trying to catch Blue in a lie.

Carefully then.

“Perhaps my appetite simply cannot be settled with only one partner.”

Sans stares at him for a moment longer then says, “Don’ think that’s it.”

“Think whatever you like. If you’re not going to listen to me, can you at least allow me to go back to cooking?”

Sans lets go of Blue, which is a surprise, but it’s not as if Blue can teleport away. Instead, he brushes off his t-shirt and returns to his cutting board. Sans moves to the other side of the kitchen and hops up on the counter, watching him. “See, Paps spilled ‘is guts this afternoon,” he says conversationally. “Told me all about your relationship, how it’s been goin’ on for a while, how the two of ya were talkin’ about tellin’ people. Then, he came over one day an’ found that human here an’ that was it. He said you freaked out that mornin’ at breakfast, but he didn’ know why. I’d sure like to know why, though.”

Blue pauses in chopping just long enough to take a focusing breath. He didn’t expect Papyrus to be so observant, but that was clearly a misstep. He thought perhaps the upset that came later would have chased the morning out of his mind but--

“He said ya had a nightmare,” Sans says, as if he isn’t destroying Blue’s world brick by brick. “An’ ya wouldn’ tell ‘im what it was about.”

“Perhaps his memory is flawed from being upset,” Blue says calmly. “Or perhaps mine is. I do not recall having a nightmare.”

“Really? I usually remember the ones where I wake up screamin’ an’ cryin’ and crawl into Red’s arms.”

Blue knows he doesn’t flinch. He knows his face betrays nothing. He knows it.

But Sans sees it anyway.

“So what was the nightmare about that scared ya out of your relationship wit’ my bro?”

It’s too pointed. Blue can’t breathe and, for a moment, he wonders if he will pass out. Maybe Sans will let it go if he does. But no, he doesn’t pass out and all of that adrenaline has to go somewhere.

It turns into anger.

Blue whips around to look up at Sans. “You really want to talk about nightmares? Fine. Has my brother told you about the resets?”

Sans freezes. Yes, clearly Papy has told him and Sans knows that Blue isn’t supposed to know. “What do you mean?” he asks carefully.

“You know, when the child fell into our Underground and killed us all over and over and over again? The resets that he thinks I cannot remember? The ones where the child slaughtered me and then I got to watch Papy die in that Judgement Hall over and over? Has he mentioned those?”

Sans blinks at him. “You… you remember the resets?”

And just like that, Blue has ruined everything. He takes a shuddered breath and forces himself to keep looking at Sans. “Yes, and Papy can’t know.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It brings him comfort to think I do not know.”

“Blue--”

“Is there any amount of suffering that you would not endure to keep Papyrus as happy as possible?”

The question hangs between them. Sans is the first to break eye contact. “What does that have to do with cheatin’ on my bro?”

Blue laughs bitterly, a sound he doesn’t think he has ever made before. “I thought that he remembered, too, and that he was keeping it from you. I thought that maybe…”  _ Maybe he was a safe bed companion, one who would understand the importance of this secret. Maybe he could feel the pain of the resets and of his brother thinking he was alone for them, when he was really the one alone all along.  _

~~_ Maybe he could finally safely love someone. _ ~~

He shakes his head, trying to clear the cascade of thoughts. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. The next morning, I realized that he didn’t remember the resets and I knew that I had to end things.”

“Could of just broken up with ‘im.”

Yes, and that is what Blue planned on doing. Harley was an accident. She showed up on his doorstep to introduce herself as a new member of the diplomatic team. He invited her in for tea and she grabbed his hand at exactly the  ~~ wrong ~~ right moment. Papyrus was devastated, but it somehow seemed cleaner and safer than the truth. Blue doesn’t mind being the villain if it helps Papyrus to move on. 

_ It makes it less likely that he will try to come back _ .

The meaningless (and comfortless) sex came later; he had hoped it would help him feel better and Harley was very nice, but it only happened once. He just wasn’t interested in her. Or any of the other humans or monsters he picked up in the week that followed.

~~_ Because he loves someone else. _ ~~

Sans makes a sympathetic noise like he sees the whole movie play out behind Blue’s eye lights. He hops off the counter and walks over to him. “Blue,” he says gently, too gently.

“Just be angry!” Blue yells. “It doesn’t matter why, and it doesn’t matter what I actually did! I hurt your brother. Just! Hate me!” His hands curl into fists and he uses them to wipe furiously at his eyes. He doesn’t get to cry! He broke it off! He is the bad guy here! He is!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sans says. “Bud, even if you actually did all the things you let Paps think you did, I wouldn’t hate ya. I’d be pissed, sure, but you’re still my family. A stupid self-destructive asshole cousin, maybe, but I don’ hate you.”

“You should.”

“Why? ‘Cause you do?”

Blue tries to turn away from him but Sans catches his arms. “I get why ya felt like you couldn’ have a relationship, ok? You’re protectin’ Stretch. An’ you’re right, there’s not anythin’ I wouldn’t do to protect Paps. But bein’ with Red? I don’ know if I could give it up, even for him. An’ I’m positive he wouldn’t want me to.” He awkwardly wipes away a few of the tears that Blue let loose. “I think ya should tell ‘im. Both of ‘em. Throwin’ away love to protect Stretch ain’t gonna help ya in the long run; it’s only gonna hurt both of ya.”

Blue shakes his head. He can’t. “Please don’t tell either of them.”

Sans sighs. “I won’t. I’ll keep lettin’ ya be the martyr if that’s whatcha wan’, but think about it, Blue. Stretch is a big boy. He doesn’ need ya to do this for him.”

“Thank you, Sans.”

Blue turns back to his vegetables, in a sensible portion for only one person. He resumes chopping, trying not to think about his too-big house and the quiet bed he will retire to later. He is fine. He is. He--

“Mind if I stay for dinner?” Sans asks, interrupting his thought spiral.

“You don’t have to do that. I am fine.”

“Sure, sure,” Sans says amicably, “but Red already texted that he got dinner wit’ Black an’ co. Ya don’ gotta be alone, Blue. Thought ya might wanna talk about your resets.”

Blue forces back a fresh wave of tears. Maybe Sans is right; maybe he can’t have a bed companion, but maybe he doesn’t have to be alone anymore either. “That. If you would like. That would be nice, Sans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do want to note that Sans (Comic) never went through resets regarding Frisk, but he did go through Flowey resets. This chapter makes that kind of unclear. I'm not sure if Blue knows that or not, but he at least knows that the other Sanses remember resets (except Black, weirdly enough) and he can, too.


End file.
